


And With Mercy for the Evil

by Para



Series: With Mercy [1]
Category: Girl Genius
Genre: Dark, Gen, jägers getting new hats
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-13
Updated: 2016-02-22
Packaged: 2018-04-20 15:01:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 37,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4791704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Para/pseuds/Para
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Agatha manages to keep enough control in Sturmhalten to turn herself in to the Baron.</p><p>Nothing goes well after that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Current tags reflect who has appeared so far; more will be added. Lack of warnings is due to me not being entirely certain which apply. This fic _will_ include torture, human experimentation, various forms of manipulation and coercion, and everyone crossing every line they find. I'll try to add more specific warnings before individual chapters. (To be clear: this fic will get pretty dark, but it will take some time to get there. I promise the first few chapters are not what I think of as dark by themselves.)
> 
> Warnings for the first chapter: Lucrezia is present, so possession.
> 
> Thanks to discountdissections and Elaendorlien for beta help!

Lucrezia surfaced to see several uniformed men and a pair of battle clanks aiming their guns at a crowd of what seemed to be merely townspeople. There were also some sort of eight-legged fox-weasels, the purpose of which Lucrezia couldn’t imagine.

“No! Ignore the crowd! The Heterodyne girl! You’ve got to—!”

Tarvek’s yell was cut off nicely by the sound of the pistol Lucrezia took off of one of the soldiers, and did not resume. That was less satisfying when she glanced at him; it appeared that her aim had wavered, and she’d only managed to shoot him in the arm. Ah well, he’d still make a decent distraction. And if that was all it took to keep him down and quiet, perhaps it was just as well he’d turned out treacherous. Minions with so little determination as that would barely be any use at all. This might be the best use for him.

He wouldn’t distract all the soldiers, of course, and they were starting to turn toward her. Well, they appeared to still be in Sturmhalten, so that was easy enough to deal with. Lucrezia raised her voice to be sure the townspeople would hear it. “Kill the soldiers! Kill them all!”

There was no time to gloat, unfortunately. That really was the worst part when plans didn’t turn out. Well, she would have plenty of opportunities later, this wasn’t a serious setback. Her daughter wasn’t even fighting much; perhaps shooting the boy had broken her spirit. Lucrezia ran.

She found Vrin first, perfectly loyal but firmly chained. A pity; she was a bit better than most of the Geisterdamen, but freeing her would have taken too long. Lucrezia killed her.

That was for the best; her daughter seemed to have amassed a very strange collection of friends, but it would have been much harder to fool them if Lucrezia had had her Geisterdamen with her. And her daughter’s friends seemed useful; a collection of skilled fighters, jägers, a very lovely young man that looked at her in a way Lucrezia quite liked, and a man who could get her to England. And a talking cat, for some reason, Lucrezia couldn’t imagine what that was about.

They took her to a circus—well, that explained the odd assortment of them. But then they wanted to tell Klaus about the Geisterdamen, and then Klaus was there, and Lucrezia’s head suddenly hurt horribly, and everything was going wrong.

~---~---~---~---~

Agatha surfaced in a surge of desperation, staring at grass from very close up, clutching her own head and only barely in control. She could feel the Other fighting; there weren’t words for the way the Other’s mind pushed against Agatha’s and tried to leech into her nerves to control her body, but it wasn’t pleasant. It was slimy and painful and scary; Agatha didn’t know how to fight effectively to keep control, and she could feel the Other winning.

All she could do was hum. It helped; the Other didn’t really sink down, but her hold on Agatha’s nerves seemed to slip, and Agatha was able to push herself up to her knees. She couldn’t keep heterodyning for long, but hopefully—

She saw Dimo first, Lars behind him to one side and Maxim to the other, all looking worried. “You’re here!” Krosp was beside Lars, and Oggie next to Maxim. “Listen—I need to get to the Baron—”

Most of them traded looks; Krosp narrowed his eyes at her. Agatha wavered as the Other pushed against her mind, and resumed heterodyning.

Dimo was the one to answer. “Miz Agatha—he’s here. Iz hyu forgettink tings again?”

Agatha couldn’t whirl around while kneeling like she wanted to, but she twisted to either side. She couldn’t see the Baron, but she did see plenty of his soldiers, perched in and on the circus wagons, their guns trained on her. She started to scramble to her feet, fell again as the Other surged, and began heterodyning again. She had to remember to keep doing that.

The jägers approached to hover uncertainly around her. It took a moment for the heterodyning to push back as much of the Other's grip on her mind as it could, and Agatha still felt unsteady as she accepted Maxim’s hand up.

The Baron was—well, he had to be behind her. Agatha couldn’t think why he hadn’t said anything, but she ignored him for the moment, clinging to Maxim’s arm to keep his attention when he would have let her go. “Listen—all three of you—” She had to hum; had to take precious seconds to _say nothing_ or else she would be letting the Other go free, but it went against everything she felt. All Agatha wanted to do was tell everyone how much danger they were in, tell them to run as far away from her as they could because she couldn’t control this, she’d tried to control it, but someone stopped her—she wasn’t sure she believed Tarvek that it had been the Other, but she wanted to, because who else could have?—it didn’t matter how.

Stopping heterodyning to speak felt like stripping off armor while being shot at. Agatha tried to talk fast. “If I try to run I need you to _stop me_ , don’t listen to anything I say that doesn’t get me to the Baron.”

Beginning to heterodyne again felt like hiding in a bunker with all her friends outside. Agatha did it anyway, and ignored the jägers’ expressions (confused, concerned, scared) to turn. She felt one of the jägers’ hands settle on her right shoulder, and a moment later one on the left; she couldn’t tell if they were trying to be comforting, but she knew they’d be able to change that touch into a hold she couldn’t escape at any time. It was reassuring in the worst way possible.

The Baron was standing in the doorway of Embi’s wagon. _How dare he_ —no no no no no, this wasn’t the time for that. The circus members had probably all had the sense to leave without fighting, they were probably fine. The Baron could be high-handed and entitled and Agatha didn’t have to like him for it, she had to make sure she couldn’t escape from him before the Other took back over, because the Other escaping would be so much worse for everyone than the Baron ever could be.

The Baron was glowering at her—Agatha would have found it intimidating, only there were so many worse things to be scared of now. She blinked up at him, trying to sort through what she needed to say and how much time she had to say it. _Lucrezia is my mother, Lucrezia is the Other, the Other is in my head, I am not the Other, I can’t keep control for long, you have to stop her, someone changed my message, promise that you’ll kill me if you can’t get the Other out of me, I don’t want to die, the geisterdamen are minions of the Other, the town is full of revenants, there might be other Others, please don’t hurt my friends, I don’t know how this happened, please fix it, I can’t._

Agatha believed, for the first time, that maybe some towns _had_ actually asked to join the Baron’s empire out of hope and not just fear of him.

The Baron, apparently, became impatient. “I would like to know,” he said as if annoyed he had to say it, “why you would forbid your people from informing me of the presence of hive engines.”

Agatha felt the blood drain out of her face. “There are _hive engines_ here?!”

The Baron’s frown deepened. “So your jägers say.”

“In de tunnels,” Maxim added. “Lots ov dem, and de geistervimmin. Dimo vos goink to tell de Baron—”

“Yes! Tell him! Always tell him about hive engines! Eep!” Agatha wavered as the Other surged in her mind, and her vision whited out. The hands on her shoulders shifted to her arms, holding her up. She realized she’d stopped heterodyning and started again.

“Vell, ve dun haff to tell him now,” Dimo said. “But hyu vere sayink not to.”

Agatha couldn’t answer. She had to keep heterodyning. The Other was being pushed down again, but more slowly. At least her vision was fading back in.

“And I would like to know why,” the Baron said.

Agatha waited until it felt like the Other was as far down as she got, blinking to try to clear her vision faster. She took a deep breath, then decided that was a wasted second and used it to heterodyne instead. She needed to be careful about this. (She still didn’t want to trust the Baron, but she wanted to unleash the Other on Europa even less.) “That wasn’t me.” She could heterodyne for a second between each sentence. “And someone changed my message.” That should keep the Other suppressed enough to get through the most important parts. “There was this machine in the castle—the Prince recognized me somehow.” No, that was misleading. “Not with the machine. I was invited to the castle after the show. They drugged me, I think.” She heard one of the jagers growl. “The Prince was going to use the machine to put the Other in my head.”

There was a cacophony of reactions; _what? vot! how dare he!_ Both of the hands on Agatha’s arms tightened, she thought protectively. (Oh no, she hadn’t even thought yet how the jägers would feel about what had happened—she hoped they didn’t take it too personally.) The Baron was looking thunderous, though Agatha thought it probably wasn’t at her. “And did he?”

“His daughter killed him.” That got more reactions, and more varied; there were a few versions of _good riddance_ and _deserved what he got_ among the surprise. “Tarvek copied my voice for her to use, so she can control revenants and the geisterdamen. Tinka—one of the muses—tried to help me escape. The geisterdamen broke her and took me back to the machine.” Agatha was, she realized, stalling. She still didn’t want to admit this, as if keeping it secret made it less true. “They put the Other—Lucrezia—into my head. I’m in control now but I can’t keep it for long.”

The jägers were growling, Agatha noticed; one had crowded close to her on either side, as if they were trying to retroactively shield her. Or, she realized, presently shield her from the Wulfenbach soldiers’ guns that were now all trained on her.

And she was _glad_ the guns were all pointed at her. Being a spark really had ruined her life. At least it was hard to sob while heterodyning.

“…I see,” the Baron said finally. “And so you came to me.”

“Yes.” Agatha straightened as much as she could while held and surrounded by protective jägers. “I can’t—If I had time I might be able to get rid of her, but I don’t. You can keep her—me—us contained until you can remove her, or—” Her throat caught; Agatha blinked hard to clear her vision, felt a tear drip down her face, heterodyned for a moment to get control back. “Or kill me if you have to.”

“No!” Oggie snarled from her right. “Hyu is not dyink!”

Agatha wanted to cry, but had to heterodyne. She leaned against his side, appreciated the (useless, but comforting) way his arm curled protectively over her shoulders. “I don’t want to.” Maxim edged behind her, hand still on her left arm, and Dimo in front of her, beginning to crouch like he was planning to launch himself at anyone that came too close.

Agatha had to crane her head a bit to see the Baron now. He looked… pitying, she thought. Well, that was better than murderous. Whether it was for her or the jägers. She kept heterodyning as he stepped down from the wagon. Dimo thankfully didn’t growl as he approached, though all three of the jägers tensed. The Baron stopped in front of Dimo. He reached into his coat, pulled out a small, ornate box and held it out toward Agatha. Dimo eyed his arm with obvious suspicion. “I had intended to return this to you.”

Agatha was sure she had never seen the box before in her life. She stared blankly at the Baron, who only stood where he was, until she realized he might not mean the box itself and reached out to open it.

“My locket!” An entirely new flood of emotions started, and Agatha stared at the locket as she tried to sort through them. She’d worn it for years—it had her parents’ pictures—it was all she had of them or her uncle, even of Adam and Lilith now—it had kept her safe—now she knew what from—but—

Anger won out, and Agatha pulled her hand back quickly. “No, I—it kept me safe. By suppressing my spark, and keeping me stupid, and damaged, and—” Her voice caught; she remembered to heterodyne before continuing. “Thank you, but I—I don’t want it.”

The Baron’s eyebrows rose, but he closed the box and put it back in his jacket. “I had wondered why you changed so much,” he said. “Then—I will do my best to help you as well as I can without risking the Other being freed. Will you accept sedation this time?”

Agatha winced at the memory. “Yes.”

“…And tell your jägers?” the Baron added.

Agatha didn’t think they really needed to be told at this point, but she also didn’t think this was the time to argue with the Baron. There was nothing wrong with being thorough, anyway. She straightened, reluctantly abandoning Oggie’s protective arm, since it didn’t seem like exactly the position to be giving him orders from. “Dimo, Maxim, Oggie. I want you to make sure I don’t escape the Baron, and help him with whatever he needs to keep me contained, get the Other out of my head, and get rid of the hive engines and geisterdamen. Here and anywhere.” That seemed like it would cover it. Oh! “Don’t listen to anything I say that would undermine any of that. And tell all the other jägers I said so, too.”

“…Yez Mistress,” Dimo said. Maxim and Oggie muttered their own sullen agreements, barely audible over Agatha’s heterodyning.

Agatha looked back at the Baron. “Does that cover everything?”

“Well enough.” The Baron reached into another pocket, fished around for a moment, and pulled out four vials. He held them up to his eyes, selected one, and dropped the others back in his pocket. He held out the one he’d kept. “The sedative.”

“Hy’ll giff it to her,” Maxim declared. The Baron raised an eyebrow, but surrendered the vial and stepped back.

Oggie was crowding against Agatha’s side again, and Dimo glaring silently around the clearing. Maxim looked equally unhappy, but didn’t hesitate in pulling the cork out of the vial and holding it up to Agatha’s nose.

She couldn’t smell anything, but it must have been very effective, because almost immediately Agatha felt herself losing her hold on consciousness. She let go with a sense of, at least, relief. Whatever happened now, the Other wasn’t free.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Baron is not happy with this situation. Or with Tarvek Stormvoraus.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  ~~This chapter isn't beta'd yet, so some edits may occur to improve flow once my betas have free time again. If that happens, I'll mention the edits in notes on this and the next chapter, but they shouldn't affect the content.~~ Beta'd! Jager has been changed to jäger where necessary, and a couple changes to phrasing have been made, but the content is the same.
> 
> Warnings for this chapter: I don't _think_ there are any, but the Baron denying Tarvek painkillers might edge a bit in the direction of torture.
> 
> Also: jäger accents are hard.
> 
> Thanks to discountdissections for beta help!

“You.” Klaus pointed in the direction of a soldier as he watched the girl’s eyes droop. “Go back to the ship. Have them tell the Castle to send ahead all military forces at full speed.” The soldier saluted in the corner of Klaus’s eye, and then ran with the message. The human-colored jäger shifted, picking the girl up as she looked about to fall over. “I want both the Stormvoraus children here as prisoners. Five of you spread the word.” More footsteps retreated.

The girl stirred abruptly, her movements uncoordinated, eyes and mouth opening as if to speak, but only managed a few slurred sounds before she went limp again and passed out properly. Had the girl remembered something, or had Lucrezia—the Other—tried to take control? Klaus could determine that later.

The jägers were wild ones, which was inconvenient. Though Klaus was going to have to do some careful maneuvering to keep control of any jägers now that they’d found a Heterodyne, so for now it may simplify things. And she had ordered them to help, so it was worth trying. “Jägers.”

The looks he got in return were unhappy, but didn’t seem to be angry with him specifically. “Vot?” the green one demanded.

“I am aware you do not wish to be separated from your Heterodyne, and I do not intend to force you to leave her.” Not yet, anyway. They likely couldn’t stay for the entire process of cleaning Lucrezia out of her mind, but they would probably accept that. “But the faster I can locate the hive engines the easier it will be to destroy them all, and no one else has been in the tunnels. I would appreciate if at least one of you would come with me.”

The jägers traded glances, and then gestures. Or exaggerated faces in one case, since the human-colored one had his arms full holding the girl. Klaus told himself not to laugh. “Hy’ll go,” the green one said after a moment, turning away from the other two as they were in the middle of gesturing and face-making.

“No vay!” The purple one grabbed for the green one’s shoulder that still had a full arm attached, but was dodged. “Hyu kent fight bogs now!”

“Hy dun _haff_ to fight,” the green jäger said. Klaus had never expected to find himself empathizing with jägers about their own, but the purple and human-colored ones both looked just as unconvinced as he was feeling. The green one tried to cross his arms stubbornly, but apparently hadn’t yet figured out how to do that without two of them. “Hy _don’t_.”

“While that is technically true,” Klaus said, “I have trouble believing that you don’t intend to anyway, and would rather not have to worry about keeping you out of irrational danger as well.” The green jäger bristled, but the other two grinned, so Klaus thought he might be forgiven before too long.

“Dimo and I will go with Agatha,” a woman’s voice declared. Klaus turned toward it, and froze. “Maxim and Oggie can help with the geisterdamen and the wasps. ...What?” She eyed Klaus, her expression a mix of confusion and suspicion.

“Skifander,” he blurted. Or breathed. It was hard to tell. Far from typical Skifandran clothes, but green hair, Skifandran swords, arm bands, the emotive headband—

Her eyes widened, and she stiffened in shock. At least Klaus wasn’t alone. “You’ve heard of it? You _know_ it?”

—that was a mistake. The shock was quickly and coldly doused in fear. If she was looking for Gilgamesh— “Why are you _here_?”

Perhaps he’d sounded nicer than he felt. Or perhaps she didn’t care. Either way she only looked slightly offended before straightening. “I am Zeetha, daughter of Chump and War Princess of Skifander.” As if Klaus had had any breath left to lose. “My mother is the War Queen Zantabraxus. My father was an outsider who was forced to leave when I was young. An explorer’s ship arrived—ah—about four years ago, and I was chosen to return with them to learn of their lands and search for my father.” She bowed her head, her posture still regal, but now conveying sorrow. “I… became sick on the journey, and everyone else on the ship was killed by pirates. I avenged them and began traveling. I hope when I find my father he will know the way and we can both go home. For now, I have chosen Agatha as my zumil.”

“…Chump.” Klaus pinched the bridge of his nose. What had possessed Zantabraxus to send Zeetha looking for him with only that name, she should have _known_ he wouldn't be using it in Europa—

“I know what it means in your language!” Zeetha snapped.

…Klaus could believe that she did. He cleared his throat. “I see.” She hadn’t mentioned assassinating anyone or having a brother, at least. Though she certainly would have picked up on how Europa would view such a thing by now, so she would know not to. “I… know of Skifander.” He’d already given that away. “But there isn’t time to talk now.”

“That’s true.” She sighed. “When you go into the tunnels, watch out for the acid spitters. Yellow-green glowing slime, lots of sizes. One of the small ones is how Dimo lost his arm.”

Well, that was good information to have. “Thank you,” Klaus said. “Is there anything else?”

She frowned thoughtfully, then shook her head. “Only where we saw things, but Maxim and Oggie can point them out better when you’re there. And the castle had a lightning moat, but I assume you knew that.”

Well, not officially. Klaus nodded. “Then I suggest you go up to the Castle now.” He turned to the nearest soldiers. “Four of you escort them. The girl should be out for forty eight hours. Secure her anyway, but have a medic set up hydration and nutrition.” Zeetha frowned, but moved over to the jägers and took the girl from the human-colored one.

Klaus turned away before he could watch them go. He had a fight to plan. The hive engines couldn’t be allowed to escape, no matter how unsuited the present military was to hunting them through tunnels.

~---~---~---~---~

Tarvek had some experience with nearly dying. It usually happened in empty halls or rooms in the Castle, occasionally similar areas of a relative’s. It usually happened with Tarvek backed into a corner and looking nervous and calculating (no one worth worrying about would believe anything else) until his smoke knight won or died, at which point he’d either thank the knight, or take one of the corpse’s weapons to kill the assassin before running to claim they’d each killed the other. It usually was wholly tedious.

It didn’t usually happen outside, under a jarringly bright sky and surrounded by Wulfenbach soldiers. It didn’t usually _hurt_. He wasn’t usually actually afraid, but there was a moment while his ears rang and pain raced through too many nerves to place its newest origin and he wondered if he wasn’t actually dying now. (He couldn’t, he hadn’t _done_ anything yet, he needed to live so he could save Agatha and become the Storm King, but he had no control—)

It only lasted a moment. He might have (barely) been in danger from the blood loss if he’d been alone, but he wasn’t, and when the initial panic was past he could trace the pain. Lucrezia had only shot him in the arm; the rest of the pain was just from the other injuries being jarred when he fell.

Well, he still was in danger—they were _Wulfenbach_ soldiers, even if they were currently bandaging his arm. And they were rather irritated that Tarvek hadn’t warned them, like he was supposed to _expect_ someone to _blow up_ Agatha’s machine—or it to blow itself up, which was more common and he might have guessed would happen, but he’d still tried to warn them when he realized, it wasn’t his fault they couldn’t react quickly. They didn’t seem to care, but also didn’t seem to think they could get away with doing any more than continuing to take him wherever they had been already. Tarvek hardly trusted the clank carrying him not to drop him again, but he wasn’t given much choice and knew better than to argue.

They’d barely started moving again when another pair of Wulfenbach soldiers jogged up with the message that Tarvek was to be taken to the Baron as a prisoner. Tarvek didn’t ask what else the Baron took people as. He supposed hostages were a different _variety_ of prisoner.

The soldiers briefly debated tying him up, but decided he was already disabled enough by his injuries. Good. They were right that Tarvek would hardly be able to assassinate the Baron in this state, but he could escape basic soldiers given the chance, and he could wait for it. Not that chaining him would have slowed him down much, either, unless they thought to check his watch and coat linings for lock picks. Drugs perhaps—

—or an airship. They were taking him onto an airship. Black _fire_. He should have expected that, it was the _Baron_. How could he escape an airship—

The ship they took him to wasn’t Castle Wulfenbach, which theoretically might have made it easier to escape. But the Baron was there; standing in a room from which he could oversee Sturmhalten and barking orders as people scurried to obey. He was frowning, angry; not that Tarvek had ever seen him _not_ looking angry, but—

Tarvek yelped as the clank dropped him onto a—why was there a hospital cot here? Well, for Tarvek, apparently. There was a doctor too, who started pushing Tarvek to lay down and fussing at his injuries as soon as he landed. “Two gunshot wounds and a sword wound, _what_ have you been doing, boy, is there anything else that hurts?”

“Ack!” Tarvek choked as the woman prodded at the shot on his leg. “No—no, just bruises, maybe.”

She paused to frown at him. “Maybe?”

“The clank _dropped_ me.” And Tarvek was still offended by it.

“Hmph. Well that shouldn’t be serious.” She moved from the wound on his leg to the one in his arm, and then the cut on his chest. “Well, I’ll need to remove the bullets, and then you’ll need plenty of stitches and painkillers, but it doesn’t look like there are any poisons. You should be fine if you don’t do anything stupid while you’re supposed to be recovering.”

“I—” The doctor prodded at the sword cut again and Tarvek winced. “—wasn’t planning to,” he managed to say between his teeth.

“Good. Now, take this—” She dropped a pair of pills into his hand; one blue, and one dull red. “The red one will help your body begin replacing all the blood you’ve lost, and the blue is a painkiller.”

“No.” A hand that Tarvek _had not seen_ plucked the blue pill out of Tarvek’s hand. He didn’t yelp, but he did jump, hand automatically closing around the remaining pill and pulling it close so it couldn’t be stolen. The Baron frowned down at him, handing the blue pill back to the doctor. “He doesn’t get painkillers until the battle is over.”

The doctor accepted the pill back and didn’t make a move to give it to Tarvek again, but frowned at the Baron, bloody hands moving to her hips. “Herr Baron, he _needs_ painkillers. He has been shot twice and stabbed, and he will recover faster if he is _not_ in constant pain from it.”

The Baron kept frowning at Tarvek. “And he can have all the painkillers and anesthetics you want to give him, _after_ my people are done being killed and injured cleaning up his mess.”

“I did not do this!” Maybe Tarvek had technically been responsible for a tiny part of it, but certainly not most of it and he’d definitely never intended for any of it to happen. He pushed himself up, and was immediately shoved back down onto the cot by the doctor. “Just because my father did—”

“But you knew about it.” Oh. Oh, Tarvek—hadn’t quite noticed that the Baron was in the madness place until the harmonics cut him off. He stared up at the Baron, trying to figure out just how much he did know and how much he’d find out. “You knew your father worked for the Other, you knew the geisterdamen worked for her, you knew your town was full of revenants, you knew the Other could come back. And instead of telling me so I could stop it before this happened, you let it.”

“…I didn’t realize she was the Other until recently,” Tarvek said, far more stunned by the spark harmonics than he should be. He swallowed, and mentally shook himself, willed himself to ignore the Baron’s anger, he was a spark and this was _not his fault_ ; that worked, and he was able to continue more easily. “And I didn’t want you to kill _every single person_ in the entire town that I’m _supposed to protect_ —”

“I’m not killing them,” the Baron snapped. “And how many more have been wasped in the years since you could have told me?”

“At least they’re alive! I can cure them—”

The Baron was suddenly, somehow, even more intently focused on Tarvek. “You have a cure for revenants?”

“—No. Not yet.” The Baron looked angrier, but leaned away—oh, that was why he’d suddenly seemed to loom more. Leaning over Tarvek. “But with the research that was done to make the spark wasp I can make one.”

“ _Spark wasp_?”

…Maybe Tarvek should have found a better way to mention that. “Yes.”

“Where are they?” The Baron wasn’t looming again, but his eyes were darting around the room like he wanted something to fight. Maybe it was just as well Tarvek was already injured.

“A—this will take a few sentences, please be a little patient.” The Baron glared at Tarvek, but folded his arms and said nothing, so Tarvek continued. “Agatha—she’s Lucrezia’s daughter, she was made to be Lucrezia’s next incarnation. The geisterdamen summoned Lucrezia into her, but she’s _still there_ , and I think I can get Lucrezia out if I can look at the machine—”

“And the spark wasps?” the Baron interrupted.

Tarvek bit back an annoyed comment about interruptions. “There’s only one. She had it. Whichever of them was in control.”

The Baron’s eyes narrowed. “What does it look like?”

“Gold. A little smaller than a fist. Only one wasp in the engine.”

The Baron looked away, finally, turning to someone Tarvek couldn’t see while lying down. “Go search her. Put it in a sealed box and bring it to me.”

“She’s here?” It wasn’t exactly difficult to put together the implications of the Baron’s orders. “Is she hurt?”

“No.” The look the Baron gave him was similar to the one Anevka would have given a mimmoth that had somehow gotten into a project of hers and damaged it. “ _She_ came to me willingly.”

“Oh. That’s… good.” Agatha must have gotten control back, then. That was a good sign. The stronger her mind was the easier it should be to remove Lucrezia.

“Indeed.” The Baron’s expression hadn’t changed. “Now. You are going to tell me everything you know about the tunnels, the geisterdamen, and the hive engines while Doctor Werner works on you. After the battle is over you will tell me everything you know about what your father was doing, the geisterdamen, the wasps, the machine, what was done to Miss Heterodyne, and everything else in any way related to the Other. Do you understand?”

This wasn’t going to be easy to get out of. But Tarvek really did want the Other stopped, so playing along for a while wouldn’t hurt anything. He swallowed. “Yes, Herr Baron.”

“Herr Baron?” Tarvek froze at the voice, and then tried to sit up, thinking _Agatha_. The doctor pushed him down as he remembered _Anevka_ and then _Lucrezia_. “I can tell you. My brother, well—he can be a bit silly at the best of times, of course, and I believe he’s in a fugue now. Besides, our father never told him as much. He was always so focused on other things, you know.”

“Hm.” The Baron turned away as Tarvek wondered whether he might actually be in a fugue he hadn’t noticed, and then dismissed the question. It was important, but not the most important thing right now. “Very well. Here is a map….”

Tarvek closed his eyes and sighed. This was—well, he supposed he should have expected that the Baron would want Anevka as a prisoner too if he wanted Tarvek, and since that Lucrezia had been planning to stay, she’d have had no chance of escaping. So it seemed he was choosing sides now.

As if he hadn’t done that already when he fought Vrin so Agatha could run. Even if she hadn’t bothered to. Hopefully this would be more effective. “Anevka?”

It took a few seconds, but Lucrezia appeared leaning over him, looking every bit as concerned as Anevka would have. And just as genuinely, Tarvek was certain. “Yes, Tarvek?”

Tarvek let himself grin, let spark and command flow into his expression as well as his voice. “Anevka, _freeze_.”

“What?” She sounded confused at first, and then her eyes widened. “ _What_? What have you done, you—”

The Baron appeared behind her, furious. “Stormvoraus—”

“This isn’t Anevka.” The Baron paused at Tarvek’s statement. “Or her ghost. This is another Lucrezia.” He grinned, able to look up at both of them at the same time. “You could probably use her for experiments in removing her from Agatha’s mind. Or maybe not, she is a clank, and the only mind there….”

“How dare you—you treacherous boy, how dare you lie about me—Herr Baron, it’s not true!”

Tarvek gave her an annoyed glare, partly because it would be expected and partly because it might annoy her into saying more and slipping. “I see I should have built in a silencing command too, but then I didn’t expect my sister’s body to be taken over by a _three year old child_ when I made it.” He turned his focus back to the Baron. “She can electrocute anyone with contact, and she has Agatha’s voice so she can command—well, the revenants and most of the geisterdamen. Vrin—the leader of the geisterdamen was able to resist.”

“I see.” The Baron frowned at both of them, unhappy but thoughtful. “And why should I believe you?”

“You shouldn’t! He’s lying!” Lucrezia said. “Please, Herr Baron—”

“Shut _up_ ,” Tarvek snapped.

“I’m not the Other, I’m Anevka! I don’t know why he’s doing this—”

“Anevka.” The Baron’s voice wasn’t quite a growl, but it was close. “I would like to hear what he has to say.”

Lucrezia went quiet.

Tarvek frowned, trying to guess whether the Baron actually thought the clank was Anevka, or was only pretending to since calling her Lucrezia would never have shut her up. “Anevka’s brain isn’t in the clank, and never was,” he said. “Her body was in a box that had to be carried around, connected to the clank. The clank was only a puppet. It developed its own mind as she died, of course, I should have expected that since I did base it on a Muse, but—”

“Is this relevant?” The Baron’s voice was the same near-growl he'd directed at Lucrezia.

“…Mostly.” Lucrezia might be right about Tarvek being in a fugue. Well, it did help allow him to work while in pain, so he supposed having to think his way out of such a difficult situation while injured might have set it off without him noticing. “The ghost is in a different head, in one of the storage rooms beneath the castle, I don’t know where she put the—the body. I’d been working on a better head, and Lucrezia wanted another version of herself, so she summoned herself into the new head and replaced Anevka’s ghost controlling the clank.”

“Is there a _limit_ to the number of copies?”

“I don’t think so. Not practically.” The Baron raised an eyebrow. Tarvek did not roll his eyes, even though he wanted to. “I don’t think she could summon herself into _every_ girl, but she said something about having lots of choices now, so I don’t think she’s going to run out either.”

The Baron sighed. “That is… believable.” He looked at the clank. “And how long will this last?”

“No—you can’t! Don’t listen to him, please, I’m not—”

It should last indefinitely, but— “I haven’t tested it. You can turn her off with a switch in the back of her neck. She shouldn’t be able to shock you now.”

The look the Baron gave Tarvek was far from trusting, but he turned to examine the clank, and turned it off with no issue. He also picked it up himself and carried it away, but Tarvek was distracted from watching where he went by the doctor spreading a strong smelling ointment on the sword cut on Tarvek’s chest. He thought it was the sudden cold and unexpected touch at first, but no, it just stung on its own. “Ow!”

The doctor gave him an unimpressed look, one hand on his shoulder to hold him still. “I assure you, the stitches will hurt quite a bit more.”

“Of course.” Tarvek had almost forgotten about his wounds, and the Baron’s orders against anesthetics. He gritted his teeth against sound as the doctor prodded at the cut harder than he felt was entirely necessary. “Just don’t _surprise_ me with them.”

“Of course.” The doctor sounded very much like she was humoring him. The cut was beginning to go slightly numb where she’d first spread the ointment on it though, so Tarvek forgave her for that.

When he returned the Baron glanced at Tarvek, sniffed the air and then gave the doctor an exasperated look, but didn’t say anything when she merely stared back at him with a raised eyebrow.

Tarvek appreciated the numbness. The interrogation—there was no measure by which it could be called a conversation—by the Baron started tense and got worse. It would have been bad even if Tarvek hadn’t been undergoing minor surgery at the time, and the Baron hadn’t been becoming steadily more frustrated by Tarvek’s lack of knowledge of the tunnels and the reports from the battle. It felt like it lasted for days, even though it was probably only a few hours—the numbness had worn off well before the Baron was done, though only after Tarvek’s injuries had been stitched up and bandaged, so at least he could stay still. He was still exhausted by the end of it, enough so that he didn’t argue when the Baron merely waved someone over to take him to a room, or bother to look around the room until he woke up.

When he did the room was bare, metal walls and floor, with the hospital cot he was in and a change of clothes, one light in the ceiling, and no handle on the inside of the door. The door itself was only evident by being a smaller metal panel than the rest. It took a few disbelieving seconds for Tarvek to put the pieces together and think _prison cell_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Clarification in case anyone is wondering, since the characters will never have a reason to wonder about it in the story: Tarvek isn't being taken to the Great Hospital in Mechanicsburg this time due to only being shot in the arm rather than the back (which is itself due to Agatha having slightly more success fighting Lucrezia, and throwing her aim off). As a result, while Tarvek's injuries are fairly significant they aren't really life threatening now that he won't bleed out.
> 
> I assume that Castle Wulfenbach and its associated ships must have decent medical facilities on board; it wouldn't be at all practical to ship everyone who needs stitches or breaks a finger off to Mechanicsburg, or even just the nearest town. So, I'm working on the assumption that Tarvek was only taken to Mechanicsburg in canon due to a combination of life threatening injuries, and Klaus being too injured himself to give orders otherwise. (And Gil not thinking to make Tarvek a prisoner at all.) Neither of those details being the case this time and Klaus having a battle in unknown ground to coordinate, Klaus had Tarvek (and "Anevka") taken onto Castle Wulfenbach ships as soon as possible, as it's notably easier to prevent escapes and keep out smoke knights from an airship than much of anywhere on the ground.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maxim and Krosp, and now the setup is finally done! Next chapter, on to stuff finally starting to happen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On the subject of edits: The previous chapter received a few edits to phrasing and spelling, but there aren't really significant changes. _This_ chapter may get edits to improve jäger accents eventually, but I don't anticipate edits for any other reason.
> 
> Warnings: None for this chapter.
> 
> Except, uh, upset jagers. I think this fandom might make that a required warning.

The battle was almost fun.

The Baron began sending his army into the tunnels as soon as the first pieces of it that weren’t busy with the town arrived, only a few minutes after Dimo and Zeetha took Miss Agatha off to his castle ship. Maxim wanted to go with them, but Miss Agatha had said help the Baron, and he couldn’t let _Dimo_ go fight wasps and geisterdamen now, so he stayed. Besides, it was the geisterdamen’s fault that Miss Agatha had the Other in her head, so it would be wrong if jägers didn’t kill the geisterdamen themselves. It was sort of wrong that jägers wouldn’t be killing all the geisterdamen, but Maxim and Oggie weren’t enough for that, and Maxim hadn’t seen, heard or smelled any hint of jäger packs in the area, so they’d have to just kill as many as they could and let the Wulfenbach army count as allies for the rest.

Heterodynes having allies was still weird. Even Master Bill hadn’t had allies, not like this; he’d just had his brother and some really good minions that he was friends with. But Maxim had seen alliances enough times to know what they were, and having allies was better than letting a Heterodyne go unavenged because someone else got to their enemies first. And Miss Agatha asking the Baron to help get rid of the Other was basically an alliance, anyway, so she had already decided and Maxim would be a terrible jäger if he didn’t follow her. (He already hadn’t saved her, he could at least _obey_.)

Since the Baron’s army wasn’t all present, he had to stay behind to direct it as it arrived instead of fighting. (He seemed very mad about it. It was a shame he wasn’t from Mechanicsburg, he would have made a good jäger if he’d had the right loyalties.) That made Maxim and Oggie somewhat useless for what he’d asked them to do, since they didn’t know the tunnels well enough to place anything they’d seen on a map, but the two local boys they’d picked up could so that was okay. And it meant Maxim and Oggie got to go ahead with the first group of soldiers (faces covered with gas masks, a few with mechanical arms or feet but generally human) that was ready to enter the tunnels to guide them.

The tunnels hadn’t changed, of course. They were dimly lit, mostly empty except for occasional monsters in the sewage, and small parties of geisterdamen in the tunnels that weren’t part of the sewer system. It didn’t take much time to tear through any group or monster, but the tunnels were long, and they hadn’t been able to enter near the tunnel that the geisterdamen’s main force had been using.

They reached the main tunnel eventually, and had to wait while the soldiers drew chalk marks on the floor and stuck small devices to the walls to guide whoever came behind them. Maxim waited in the middle of the tunnel with Oggie, trying not to fidget; he didn’t want to wait, he wanted to find something to kill, and the tunnels were full of noise and echoes, distorted and repeating and circling so he couldn’t tell where anything came from. Oggie seemed equally frustrated, eyes narrowed in the direction the geisterdamen had been going last time they’d been in this tunnel and idly running his hand over the grip of his poleaxe, like he hadn’t already worn through three of them.

Actually—

Why was it getting _louder_?

And Maxim was pretty sure the echoes hadn't given the Wulfenbach soldiers Mechanicsburg accents before….

“Hoy!”

The shout barely made it into the tunnel before the first of a pack of Wulfenbach jägers followed it, leaping into the room and skidding to a stop when they noticed the soldiers still present. “Vhy hyu guys schtill here?”

The soldiers’ captain pressed a hand to his face. “Where’s your captain?”

“Hoy, Balin!”

“Vot?” Balin vaulted over the heads of the jägers in front of him, landing well within reach of the soldiers’ captain, who rather wisely jumped back before straightening. “Hyu vant someting?”

The captain was pretty calm for a non-Mechanicsburger human. He frowned, then sighed. “To plan, since you’ve caught up. Did the Baron send any orders with you?”

“Hrm….” Balin scratched his head. “Hy tink he say someting about green tings, mebbe?”

“That’s… er….”

“Hoy! Hy thought hyu two vas dead!”

The only part of one of the Wulfenbach jägers launching herself at him that surprised Maxim was that it was only one. Stepping aside and letting Boyka sail through the air past him was easy.

Oggie, apparently, hadn’t been paying as much attention, and whirled while striking with the poleaxe, probably on instinct. Maxim dodged, and Boyka was hit in the face.

“Ho. Sorry Boyka.” Oggie leaned over to peer at her, and jump back as she attempted to claw his face open. “Hoy! Hy see, no sympathy for _hyu_ , den, no vay.”

“Dun need eet,” Boyka said as she rolled back to her feet. “Dot was a veak hit, ennyvay.”

“Hoy—!”

“Hyu two _vas_ dead.” Balin chose to join the conversation by grabbing Oggie’s poleaxe and lifting both it and Oggie into the air. Since Boyka didn’t retaliate (and Oggie couldn’t) it was probably a good plan, and Balin set Oggie back down next to Maxim before glaring at them both. “Und instead hyu is _here_.”

Maxim frowned while Oggie glared next to him. “Ve’s supposed to be here,” Oggie snapped. “Miss Agatha said so.”

“She iz Master Bill’s daughter,” Maxim put in before Balin could gut Oggie for following someone else’s orders. “She vants the vasps und the geistervimmen dead.”

“Hyu _found_ vun?” Balin lit up for an instant before glaring. “Hyu don’t look happy. Vhere iz she?”

“Becawze iz not goot.” Oggie was leaning on the poleaxe again, glaring at no one in particular. “De geistervimmen put de Other in her head, und Maxim put her to sleep for de Baron—”

Balin had blinked at Oggie’s first comment as if Oggie were speaking the wrong language, and then roared. “Und vhere vere _hyu_?”

Oggie snarled. “In here, finding geistervimmen!”

“Hyu eediots, hyu _left_ —”

Maxim couldn’t recall ever winning a fight against Balin, but he punched him and roared back anyway. “Ve vere tryink to find her!”

Balin snarled, but didn’t attack. “Hyu left her!”

“She told os to,” Maxim snapped. “Vos supposed to get de circus through de city all fast und schneaky, und she didn’t vant ennyvon to know she iz a Heterodyne ontil she had der Kestle, so ve had to stay away, und den de circus vas out und ve couldn’t _find_ her!”

Maxim noticed a few seconds too late that the entire tunnel had gone quiet while he yelled.

It stayed quiet for a few seconds after, too, before the human soldiers started shuffling around again with their devices. Balin held a hand up, more to still the rest of the pack than to Maxim and Oggie. “Vhere is she now?”

“On Kestle Wulfenbach,” Oggie said. He was probably trying to look concerned at Maxim, only he was also still glaring, so he mostly looked like he was glaring at Maxim. Maxim forgave him, because he was smarter than Jenka thought and could figure out that sort of thing.

“Dimo is vith her,” Maxim added. “Und Miss Zeetha.”

“Und who’s dot?”

Maxim shared a look with Oggie, and shrugged. “Dunno, circus pipple. Vould make a goot jager, though. She vas teachink Miss Agatha to fight.”

“Hokay. Und de Baron?”

“Uh….” Maxim wasn’t sure what Balin wanted to know about him. Hadn’t Balin talked to the Baron last anyway?

“He is killink vasps?” Oggie guessed.

“Und he iz nize to Miz Agatha?”

“Ho.” Maxim ran a hand through his hair. “She vanted to go vith him, so hy guess so?”

“Hy dunno, she—”

Maxim punched Oggie, in case he was thinking about mentioning what Agatha said about the Baron being able to kill her.

Balin glared at both of them for a moment, then snorted in exasperation. “Hy dun care," he said as Oggie picked himself back up. "Ve haff a Heterodyne, and she iz not dyink. Hyu two ken tok to de generals. Dey vill decide vat ve do next.” He turned away, back toward the rest of the pack and raised his voice, like any jäger present wasn’t already focused on the conversation with every sense they had. “ _Now_ , ve kill bugs und geistervimmen for the Heterodyne!”

Maxim joined the enthusiastic roar of agreement, and “ve hunt!” as it echoed through the tunnels. It almost drowned out the human captain’s exasperated yell that “there was a plan, you can’t just—!”

But they were jägers, and the Heterodyne had been attacked and ordered them to kill the attackers, so they did just. Bugs weren’t hard to kill, anyway, and neither were geisterdamen, and since the human soldiers got to follow in their wake where there was nothing more dangerous than corpses and the occasional broken shard of glass or metal, Maxim didn’t think they really had much to complain about.

The fight was long, and poorly lit; there were more injuries than there should have been, whether the recklessness was because of enthusiasm at fighting for a Heterodyne again or anger and a thirst for vengeance that one had been hurt. And occasionally from stupidity; Balin’s pack was only the first to arrive, and the ones that followed had only learned part of the story from the human soldiers along the way (including a few parts that hadn’t actually happened), so the leader of the second pack to catch up dragged Maxim and Oggie out of the fight demanding answers. So did the next one. The one after that arrived just as they were jumping back into the fight, and decided after Maxim growled at her and Oggie hit her over the head with his poleaxe to ask one of the other leaders instead. After that they were left alone to fight.

It would have been the most fun Maxim had had since Master Saturnus died, if he’d been able to stop thinking about Miss Agatha asleep in Castle Wulfenbach with the Other in her head. Or Miss Agatha falling down holding her head when the Baron appeared, and it turned out she hadn’t been Miss Agatha until then and Maxim hadn’t even noticed. Instead he just felt angry and restless, and cutting through geisterdamen didn’t help at _all_.

~---~---~---~---~

Krosp settled on top of a wagon, to all appearances undisturbed despite the jolting, and asleep if it weren’t for his ears swiveling every direction. The wagons were loud and drowned out most conversation, of course, but he could hear pieces of a few.

“…think it’s safe… keep going?”

“…done anything yet, so….”

“I still can’t believe she’s….”

“…have said anything?”

“…think Lars would….”

“…mind his son being….”

“...never done anything about….”

The same conversations that had been repeated since Sturmhalten. Which was only two days ago, but Krosp had been bored of them after a few hours. He kept listening anyway, in case someone said anything new.

Master Payne and Countess Marie were in the wagon below him, which was the only way Krosp could hear their quiet conversation repeating reasons to worry—they’d aided someone hiding from the Baron, and now he knew it—and reasons not to worry—he hadn’t done anything yet, and she’d been on his side at the end, sort of. Personally, Krosp thought the Circus had gained about the same status he had after he escaped, not worth the bother it would take to chase them down. Even though they weren’t making it very difficult to chase them down at all. Master Payne didn’t want to make them look like they felt guilty.

A few other circus members might have been having the same conversation, but they were out of Krosp’s hearing while the wagons were moving. Those he could hear were mostly having one of two others. The majority wondering about Agatha: what she could do, where she’d come from, what had happened to her, what the Baron would do with her, and what she’d do once she was free again. (She was a Heterodyne, of course she’d be free again soon. Krosp agreed with them about _that_ , and not much else in their speculations.)

The rest, a smaller but generally more productive group, were quickly hashing out how to turn Agatha’s adventures that they knew of or could imagine into plays. Being the first Circus with new Heterodyne stories _and_ the only one that had traveled with a Heterodyne (“a real Heterodyne!”), they assured each other giddily, would take the Circus to unforeseen heights of fame. The debates were mostly over how much they could elaborate—more made for a better story, but Agatha knew them and they wanted to stay on her good side, and no one knew if the Baron’s son would be as tolerant of his portrayal as the Baron was—and whether it would be too confusing to have Lars play himself. Lars, oddly, stayed out of that second debate.

Barring some new unforeseen disaster, the Circus was continuing toward Mechanicsburg, which suited Krosp almost as well as the Circus. The Circus members found Mechanicsburg the perfect place to debut a new Heterodyne’s story, and the time it would take to reach the town perfect to write and rehearse a new play. (Not writing a play or several about Agatha wasn’t even mentioned.) They’d be telling no end of stories in the towns on the way of course, as they had in the town last night, but it took a little more time to refine them for the stage, apparently.

And for Krosp’s part, he could hardly go back onto Castle Wulfenbach; with the Baron aware of his existence, such a move would be suicidally stupid, and Krosp was a _cat_. He had no intention of guaranteeing his own termination when Agatha wanted to be captured in the first place. Once she didn’t, she had a ship full of jägers to get her out. Maybe by crashing the entire ship, but they’d keep Agatha from being killed in it and Krosp didn’t care about the rest.

In the meantime, Krosp would go with the circus to Mechanicsburg, and when they moved on he would stay. He would find out who was in charge in Mechanicsburg, and who was loyal to Agatha, and he would get them organized and prepared, so that when Agatha reached the town they would be prepared to support her. And then she would be safe whether the Baron was on her side or not.

It would be up to the jägers to get her to Mechanicsburg, of course, but Krosp was willing to trust them with that. They were pretty stupid, but they were true loyal subjects, and they were strong enough they didn’t need to be smart. It was a much more efficient use of resources for them to follow Agatha onto Castle Wulfenbach while Krosp prepared Mechanicsburg than for Krosp to go back to the Castle, even if he hadn’t been in danger.

Hmph. Krosp flicked an ear as a fly got close to it, and shifted to curl on his other side. He still didn’t _like_ what had happened, but it wasn’t a terrible setback. Things would work out soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Balin's name is just one or a piece of one that I found on behindthename and means nothing in particular relevant to the story. Boyka's is also one I found on behindthename, and means that I found a girl's name which contains "boy" and means battle while looking for a female jäger name, and laughed for half an hour.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Okay, still not getting to the dark parts (or Zeetha, I swear I will get to her next chapter), but closer! At least it's not still all the same battle.
> 
> Alternately: "Klaus, _communicate with your son you idiot_ , the chapter (part 1)"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Hm... well, the jägers aren't really happy now, but they aren't as upset as last chapter. (Gil also is less than happy, but he isn't a jäger so he gets to deal with it.)
> 
> Jäger accents... will be fixed/improved someday far in the future, once I've finished going through the comic recording them. It'll be a while.

Gil didn’t even know anything had gone wrong for two days.

Which wasn’t really unexpected. He’d worried about what Wooster would do, but not _that_ much, and he had Agatha’s parents to resurrect. He sunk into a fugue within a few minutes of sending Wooster off, and didn’t come out of it until two days later, when Zoing pinched his ear to complain about “notee!”

There was, in fact, no more tea, which probably had something to do with the ten (cold) cups of it lined up nearby. Even they smelled appetizing, so Gil checked one last time that everything was stable before leaving to get both food and more tea. He’d need to replace Wooster soon, but that would require finding someone he wanted to keep around, ugh. Maybe he could ask Theo? No, having another spark in his lab as an assistant was just asking for trouble, and Theo probably had enough chores already. Oh, and Theo had left for India with Sleipnir, he’d almost forgotten about that….

It looked like it was just after lunch, by the amount of traffic in the halls. Good; that should make getting lunch even easier; there would already be lots of extra food, so Gil could just take some of that instead of messing up anyone’s schedule.

It took a few more minutes for Gil to realize why the hall traffic still seemed slightly off. There were a lot of jägers, and the extras seemed to just be wandering (or occasionally getting into fights with each other), not following the patrols they were supposed to. There were jägers doing their usual patrols, too, there just seemed to be a lot _more_ ….

Gil hopped over a pair (trio? It was hard to tell) of jägers that came rolling at him down the hallway in what he hoped was a friendly fistfight. Another pair of jägers were walking more calmly behind them and apparently betting on the fight, so it was probably fine. Gil tapped one on the shoulder as he reached them and both stopped. “Excuse me, but I’ve been in my lab. Why are there so many jägers on the Castle now?”

The jäger looked like he was about to get offended, then looked Gil up and down and relaxed. “Ho. Hyu iz de Baron’s keed, yah?”

“Ya—yes. I am. I’ve been busy the last few days—”

The jäger rolled his eyes, but didn’t seem to be offended. “Yah, yah. Sparks,” he muttered to his companion, who snickered. Gil folded his arms and glared, but the jäger answered before he could say anything else. “Hyu poppa iz callink os all beck. Hy dunno vat for.”

“Hm. Thank you,” Gil said on automatic, and continued making his way toward a kitchen more slowly. That was worrying. Not the jägers themselves, but why would his father be calling them all together? Gil couldn’t think of anything that would require the entire jäger army and be good news—

—unless it had to do with Agatha—

Gil started running.

The Baron wasn’t in his office when Gil got there, of course, but Boris was leaving it. He stared at Gil, looking very unimpressed, and refused to say where the Baron was. Well, technically he claimed he didn’t know, but Gil didn’t believe that. He also tried sending Gil off for lunch which, okay, Gil _did_ need to eat, but he also really needed to find out what had happened while he was in his lab and food was a lot easier to track down than the Baron having free time to answer him, so obviously waiting for the Baron to get back came first.

Which was why when the Baron finally arrived two hours later, Gil was dozing off sitting against the wall across from the door to his office. Boris had been nice enough to send someone else for food and a passing airman had offered (actually offered! Wow, Gil was going to have to figure out who that was, Higgs if he remembered right, maybe he could hire him as a new assistant) to return the plate to the kitchens when Gil was done, so at least _that_ wasn’t still sitting around. Gil jumped up and tried to brush himself off. The Baron looked even more unimpressed than Boris had.

Whatever. Gil had more important things to find out than whether his father had miraculously started thinking well of him yet. “Why are there jagers everywhere? What happened with Sturmhalten? And Agatha? Where is she?” Gil hoped the Baron couldn’t answer the last question; if he could they’d probably already be halfway to England and ready for war… which could explain the jägers, actually. But not asking would only tell the Baron that Gil had been involved and did know where she was.

The Baron frowned, opened the door to his office and held it. “Get in.”

Gil went.

Once he was in the office he stood, and limited himself to fiddling with the buttons on his sleeve while the Baron went around the desk and sorted out the paperwork—notes it looked like—that he'd been carrying. There was no point in trying to be calm; the Baron knew what Gil felt about Agatha already. Although perhaps he should act calm in order to prove he could, or so that the Baron would only see that layer of pretending and not wonder if Gil was hiding anything else.

Hm. It was a shame Gil hadn't gotten the chance to pick Wooster's brains before sending him off. He wasn't bad at deceiving people, but you couldn't beat a master spy for expertise. Even if Wooster hadn't actually fooled Gil for long at all, that was more due to the poor luck of meeting Gil and being subject to one of the Baron's background checks than because he'd messed up….

"The girl is alive," was the first thing the Baron said. It was not a promising start. Gil tried not to frown. "Your servant, while probably alive, has chosen to vanish into the Wastelands. I think I'll let Albia deal with him, if he chooses to return there. There's not much we could do but send him home anyway."

"…Er." Gil couldn't think of anything to say that didn't either risk revealing too much, or risk being too obvious in hiding something. “What do you mean ‘she’s alive’?”

“Exactly that.” The Baron leaned back in his chair, hands clasped and one eyebrow raised as he looked at Gil. “Sit, Gilgamesh. You’re hardly about to be attacked here.”

Well, no, of course not. Probably. If the Baron decided Gil wasn’t good enough as a heir he’d take him to a lab, not his office. It wasn’t himself Gil was worried for. He sat anyway, and made sure to keep his hands still. Whatever it took to get the Baron to answer him about Agatha.

“Gilgamesh, have you had a bath at any point in the last week?”

“ _Damn_ it, Father!” Gil found himself standing up again, palms slammed against the desktop. The Baron looked utterly unaffected, curse him. “That is not your business! It has never been your concern! If you want me to take more baths while working, send von Pinn, that’s her job! Now tell me about Agatha!”

The Baron glowered. Gil expected to be thrown out, but before he could do more than stand up the Baron waved him back into his seat. Gil sat, and winced at the thump. He hadn’t sat down that heavily on purpose. “Sorry.”

His apology was quiet, but not nearly so quiet the Baron might not have heard. It was ignored anyway. Instead the Baron finally gave him an actual answer, so Gil didn’t care. “Miss Heterodyne is on one of the prison ships. At her request. No, you may _not_ see her.” Gil’s mouth snapped shut again. He glared, but was ignored. “Prince Aaronev was an ally of the Other. Sometime during the Other War, he began hosting geisterdamen—her servants. When he discovered Miss Heterodyne he invited her to his castle in order to replace her mind with Lucrezia’s.”

“But what does—”

“Lucrezia is the Other.” The Baron frowned, like that was supposed to be something obvious.

Gil still didn’t care. “But Agatha’s alright? They failed? Er, I guess that means she killed Aaronev, but really that’s the right—”

“What actually happened is a mess and I do not know the details, but they partly succeeded. Miss Heterodyne retained enough control to turn herself in and request help in removing the Other’s personality from her head.”

…Gil was going to kill Wooster. Okay, no, probably there hadn’t been anything the man could have done, but he _wanted_ to. “But we’re going to get the Other out, right? And then Agatha will be fine?”

At least this time the frown was a warning instead of disapproval. “ _I_ am going to get the Other out. Lucrezia is a powerful spark and enough of an actress to trick Bill Heterodyne into marrying her in addition to being the Other. I will not allow her access to anyone else.”

…Gil supposed he couldn’t reasonably argue that he’d be immune to listening to Agatha. He really doubted the Other could convincingly pretend to be Agatha, but the Baron wouldn’t listen to that. He’d have to come up with another, better argument later. “Okay. And then what?”

“That will depend on Miss Heterodyne.” The Baron frowned at Gil, apparently considering something but Gil couldn’t guess what.

“How long do you think it will take to… er… fix her?”

The Baron tapped a finger on the desktop, making no attempt to hide irritation. “ _That_ remains to be seen. I am currently attempting to establish a baseline of physiological responses and brain activity for both personalities so that changes can be detected. Studying the machine that was used on her should help to clarify what must be undone.” He frowned. It was, Gil though, not actually at him this time. “Tarvek Sturmvoraus has also been very _forthcoming_ with information, but the machine seems more reliable.”

—Oh. Sturmvoraus. Sturmhalten. Tarvek would be involved in this, wouldn’t he? “What did he do?”

“Nothing he wasn’t forced to, he claims. Of course.” The Baron couldn’t have made his disbelief clearer if he’d tried.

Gil… wasn’t sure. He knew Tarvek would happily work against the Baron, but working for the Other seemed somehow worse than he’d expect. “Maybe Agatha knows something?”

“Perhaps. I intend to ask her several things as soon as I can tell when it is her.”

Okay, yeah, making sure the answers came from Agatha was an important point. And at least the Baron wasn’t assuming he couldn’t be fooled. “What are you doing with him? And his sister, uh—” Gil must know her name. “Anevka?”

“His sister apparently died some time ago. The clank she was said to be inhabiting was controlled by a personality that mimicked her, and was also replaced by the Other. She has been destroyed.” The Baron actually looked regretful at that. “It was impressive work, but I could not risk a trace of Lucrezia remaining free.”

“Oh. Well, no.” Not if it was in a clank. As long as the Baron didn’t take that approach to Agatha…. “And Tarvek?”

“He is a prisoner. I am not telling you where.”

“I wasn’t going to ask.” Really, why would Gil go looking for _Tarvek_? He’d made it quite clear they weren’t friends already. “You’re not killing him?”

Both of the Baron’s eyebrows rose slightly. “Certainly not. We have very few sources of information on what actually happened. He is valuable even if he can’t be trusted.”

“Well, yes, but I meant in general—”

“Gilgamesh.” The Baron was frowning, watching Gil like he couldn’t be trusted to take care of himself. “Tarvek Sturmvoraus is not your friend.”

“I know _that_.” How many times had he heard Tarvek complain about the Baron? They’d been born on opposite sides of a war that only Tarvek cared about. (Easy for Gil to say, when his father was the one winning.)(But then Tarvek’s had been working for the Other.) “Not being my friend doesn’t mean he deserves to die.”

“Working for the Other does.”

“The Other likes to force people to work for her.” Revenants were really the ultimate form of it. “Just because he says he was forced to doesn’t mean he wanted to help her.”

“Lucrezia always preferred to trick, bribe or seduce men for cooperation, actually,” the Baron said. Gil considered those options, and then decided he didn’t want to know how his father knew that. “But it’s not impossible.”

That was the best Gil was going to get now. And he really ought to go check on Punch and Judy again. He stood up, much more calmly than last time. “Was there anything else?”

The Baron watched him for a second that stretched into several, looking like he wanted to say something, but shook his head. “No. Go… rest.”

Well. Gil did need to do that. He nodded and left.

He waited to collapse until he’d gotten back to his lab and checked on the machines supporting Punch and Judy. There had been a few fluctuations he needed to fix, but it only took a few minutes, and he sat down on a cot he’d had Wooster bring into the lab—hm—well, some weeks ago.

He hadn’t meant to fall asleep, not really. But he’d already been without sleep for a few days when he’d heard the news about Agatha, and the mental exercises would only let him avoid sleeping for so long. Punch and Judy were as stable as they would be for a while, and even the most powerful stimulants couldn’t keep him awake _and_ coherent enough not to make mistakes for the two months that would be needed to finish their recovery. And if anything went drastically wrong the alarms would wake him. So he slept.

~---~---~---~---~

There were a surprising number of rooms in Castle Wulfenbach that were capable of holding the entire jäger army. Not all of those would be happy to host jägers, however, and not all of those remaining were suited to meetings. That was probably why when the Generals and the Baron called a meeting of the jägers, they did it in what Dimo had been assured was the jägers' beer hall, probably even officially. The fact that most jägers were already there at any given time might have also helped.

Dimo had not been in the hall; he had been wandering Castle Wulfenbach with Maxim and Oggie. The need to know where he was and how he could get out had become ingrained over the years they were detached, and hadn’t vanished now that they were with the pack again. Nor was he fighting it, really; not when the alternative was sitting in the jägerhall, not quite sure how to talk to anyone and no one sure how to talk to him. He’d volunteered with the expectation of being cut off from his brothers and then dying; being able to return and unable to fit back in hadn’t been part of the plan.

They weren’t the only detached jägers to return, at least; in the week since Sturmhalten five others had been informed and reached Castle Wulfenbach (plus Jenka, who had somehow gotten on with Füst before anyone noticed, and left the bear in a storage room, which mysteriously contained nothing anybody needed since). They all clustered together for the meeting, taking over a table in the front and a little to one side.

The Generals spoke first. The deal hadn’t accounted for the possibility of a Heterodyne being found and unable to immediately take control of Mechanicsburg. The Baron depended on the jägers’ help to keep the Empire stable, and by extension Mechanicsburg safe. Therefore, the Generals had decided to interpret their deal literally, and they would continue to work for the Baron until the Heterodyne was properly acknowledged by the castle, at which point the Heterodyne would be able to negotiate a new deal with the Baron if she so chose.

No one said when that would be. No one said “if” Agatha was able to take over. No one said “Agatha.”

Dimo glanced around the detached table, and was not the only one frowning.

The Generals invited the Baron to explain his idea next, though Dimo didn’t think he would have refrained from interrupting if they hadn’t. The Baron thought that a lot of geisterdamen and hive engines had escaped in the chaos of the fight, and for some reason he didn’t say whose fault it was, which was weird. Dimo was pretty sure any escapes because of the chaos would be the jägers’ fault since they had ignored the Baron’s strategy, but he didn’t know of any officer who’d ever miss punching the jäger responsible for messing up like that, but instead the Baron was talking like he was trying not to say it was his own army’s fault. Maybe there were just too many jägers to punch for it? Or maybe he expected the jägers to stop following his orders and go back to Mechanicsburg if he insulted them about it.

That might be it, since he seemed to be trying to bribe them with his plan. Instead of keeping the jägers split up assisting the rest of his army as they had been, the Baron wanted to request their help at a single mission to wipe out the Geisterdamen, which they would all undertake under the leadership of the Generals. The Generals would remain on Castle Wulfenbach, there would be information sharing both ways, and the Baron would like if some geisterdamen could be captured alive and sent back as a source of information, but that was all. They were allies, but the jäger army would for the most part function independently of Wulfenbach forces. Which also explained why they’d all been called back.

There was enthusiasm for the idea; the jägers that hadn’t been in the fight at Sturmhalten wanted their chance to kill geisterdamen, and the ones that had wanted the chance to kill more. Being more or less together again (or, at least, split up on the Generals’ orders and not anyone else’s, and into larger groups) didn’t hurt. And everyone wanted the chance to follow the Heterodyne’s orders; Dimo would be shocked if that piece of what Agatha had said hadn’t made it to every jäger in the army yet. The roars and cheers were probably audible rooms away.

Dimo was only a little surprised when Maxim stood up, arms already folded and face set on stubborn. It took a few seconds for the room to become (relatively) quiet. Dimo wasn’t entirely sure if Maxim was talking to the Baron, the Generals, or the entire room when he announced, “Hy vant a red trilobite.”

The muttering that that caused wasn’t nearly as loud or as cheerful as the earlier noise. The Baron frowned back at Maxim, confused. “A red trilobite?”

“Iz tradishonal,” Zog said, eyes on Maxim but probably answering the Baron, “to vear a red trilobite vhen ve iz fightink to avenge a Heterodyne dot died.”

“She isn’t dead,” the Baron said.

Maxim’s tone sounded like he should be shrugging, but his arms were still folded. “Not all ov dem stayed dead, und hy tink iz important enough. Dey vos tryink to kill Miz Agatha, ennyvay.”

“Lots of pipple do _dot_ ,” General Goomblast said.

“Hy still vant vun.” Maxim’s expression hadn’t gotten any less stubborn. “Vhen is de last time a Heterodyne hed to esk for help?”

General Zog frowned, and General Krizhan answered. “Hy dun tink vun has.”

“Hy vant a red trilobite.”

Oggie’s chair scraped on the floor as he stood up. It wasn’t loud, but Dimo thought the entire hall could hear it anyway. Oggie didn’t fold his arms, but he looked unusually serious. “Hy vant vun too.”

Dimo didn’t particularly care what he was wearing; as long as the geisterdamen died, whether he was wearing a badge more or less wouldn’t matter. But if the idiots were getting themselves into this, he couldn’t really let them do it alone. He stood up too, stuffed his hand in a pocket and watched the Generals without saying anything.

Dimo heard more chairs start to move, but before anyone else could say anything General Goomblast growled, “sit down.” He didn’t wait for them to finish obeying before adding, “ve vill tok und decide.”

There wasn’t much left in the meeting; the Generals still needed to determine their exact strategy, and orders would be given out in a few days. The Generals and the Baron left afterwards, and Dimo, Maxim and Oggie stayed. The other detached jägers were easier to interact with, at least, especially Jenka. (She even bought Dimo a free drink for cutting Oggie off before he could say much about Jenka ordering them not to do anything like grab Agatha and run to Mechanicsburg. It wasn’t like she could have known any more about what was in Sturmhalten than they had.) They wanted to hear about Agatha, even the stories they’d already heard several times; seemed to crave hearing every story about her the same way Dimo always felt like he needed to tell them, like if he didn’t Agatha might not be real.

The orders came a few days later, and red trilobites came with them. Dimo pinned it on his hat (and didn’t even punch Oggie for laughing at him fumbling to do it with one hand) even though he wouldn’t be going anywhere until he got a mechanical arm, or had more practice fighting without one. He wasn’t sure whether to be worried that the Generals agreed the situation was serious enough for a trilobite, or relieved that they cared enough to think it was serious at all.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zeetha finally talks to the Baron. No one tried to stab anybody. It still could have gone a lot better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Urghhh this is late. I'm sorry; I spent the weekend busy with real life stuff and then got sick (and prioritized Birth of Jägers because I thought it would be much faster to finish than it was). Also, Zeetha is really difficult to write, wow. Depending on how writing goes I may toss up an extra chapter in a few days as apology, but I'll try to go back to the every two weeks schedule otherwise.
> 
> On the plus side: I have _finally_ escaped the two scenes per chapter pattern; that was never supposed to last as long as it did, the chapters just kept working out to about the right length that way. And Klaus, I would feel sorry for you, but _maybe_ either of your children would trust you if you ever bothered to trust _them_.
> 
> Warnings: None for this chapter, I think.

Zeetha hadn’t liked school as a child in Skifander, and she didn’t like it any more now.

She used the time she spent not quite restricted to the school on Castle Wulfenbach, it would have been a waste not to, but she didn’t like it. There were plenty of books in Romanian, but they were still a struggle to read, and the ones in other languages she couldn’t make out more than a few words of at best. She’d learned to speak enough to get by in several languages as she traveled, but reading was a different issue entirely, and not something Master Payne’s Circus often needed.

The books in Romanian were useful, though. Zeetha had picked up bits and pieces of Europan culture, history and politics as she traveled, but they couldn’t match the thorough, deliberate information in the books on those subjects. She wasn’t sure whether to be impressed or disturbed by the methods the Baron used to enforce peace in his Empire, but she was definitely disturbed by what he’d been fighting against, from the Other to the chaotic danger and constant warfare that Europa apparently considered the normal state of things. She’d known about it all, she’d been told, she’d even traveled the Wastelands where things weren’t so much safer than they had been (except it seemed they were, actually; half the circus members wouldn’t have lived a year traveling through old Europa), but it didn’t compare to the dry descriptions of war and destruction. Skifandran history could be equally dry when taught in the classroom and gilded when told around a campfire, and Queen Zantabraxus had made a point of teaching Zeetha to think vividly of what those dry or gilded descriptions meant.

The Baron’s students had begun returning to the school after three days, a few at a time. The five that had already arrived assured Zeetha that there were many more, dozens of students who would eventually fill the rooms. Zeetha hoped they were less annoying than the ones already present, but didn’t think it was likely. The students so far had stared at her like an exotic animal, backed away when she worked on sharpening or polishing her swords, asked strange questions about Skifander and tried to explain very basic things about Europa. Telling them Zeetha had already been traveling Europa for two years only made them start asking strange questions about the Circus.

It was the fifth day since Agatha had been whisked away into somewhere the Baron thought was secure before he sent a messenger for Zeetha. The messenger was what the jägers had told Zeetha was called a lackya (she couldn’t figure out if their accent had changed the word or not), and refused to tell her anything except that the Baron wanted to see her.

Zeetha wasn’t sure if she wanted to see the Baron. She needed to; he had Agatha in prison—willingly, to help her, which would have been okay, except Zeetha and Dimo had both been blocked from following to know where he’d locked her up. (Zeetha had had to restrain Dimo from killing the guards and nurses that did it, which just made it harder to remind herself not to do the same.) And he had Zeetha all but officially imprisoned too. She needed to meet him, needed to know what he was like and how he thought when he was dealing with people instead of cities; whether Agatha was right to trust him.

But he ruled a conquered empire, and kept it conquered by enforcing his threat of putting down any rebellions with brutal and overwhelming force. He sent his son to arrest girls who hadn’t done anything wrong but run away. His son obeyed, and put far more effort and emotion into his attempt to capture Agatha than would have come from merely obeying because he didn’t dare refuse. His son looked about the same age Zeetha was. And the Baron knew of Skifander, and it really didn’t make sense that Chump had been her father’s name in his own language, and Zeetha didn’t think she wanted to know any more than she already did.

But she had to. So she followed the lackya to the Baron’s office, swords polished until they shone because she didn’t have anything else formal available, and head high.

The Baron looked tired, with shadows starting to form under his eyes and ink staining his fingertips. There were papers on his desk. Zeetha ignored them; she couldn’t read Romanian well enough to pick up anything useful in a casual glance, and blatantly spying would be a terrible idea. Instead she gave him a semiformal bow of greeting, and stood straight. He didn’t return it; he stayed sitting down. But the way he nodded seemed to echo the correct bow anyway, and didn’t tell her to sit like Europans always tried to, and Zeetha’s stomach twisted. She couldn’t tell if it was homesickness or fear.

He waited, but Zeetha had no intention of being the first to speak, and couldn’t think of what to say anyway. He must have realized that quickly. “I assume the first thing you would like to know about is Miss Heterodyne.”

“Yes.” The word felt much stronger than she let it sound.

The Baron folded his hands together, watching Zeetha with the same expression some of her teachers had used when evaluating her reaction to their corrections. “Lucrezia—the Other—was the first to have control when the body woke up, but Miss Heterodyne has regained control twice since then. She is unhappy, but cooperating.” He paused, then added, “and she likely has gained control more times when I was not present.”

Zeetha frowned. “Wouldn’t whoever’s watching her know?”

The Baron shook his head. “We have discovered revenants, which look and behave in all ways as the people they were before infection, but which are compelled to obey Lucrezia’s voice, which Miss Heterodyne has inherited. They are numerous. We have identified nearly two hundred on board the Castle so far, and it seems that the entire population of Sturmhalten is infected. If Lucrezia were to have control when a revenant could hear her, or even someone uninfected who was easily swayed into being a minion, she could destroy the ship and everyone on it. Which is why you cannot see her either."

“I’m not a revenant.” Zeetha wanted to fold her arms, but that would be informal. “If I were compelled to obey Agatha’s voice, it would have happened when I was training her.”

“Yes—and that is good to know,” the Baron said. His face even seemed to relax ever so slightly. “But other people could follow you to find her, or argue that if I have allowed you to see her, then they should be allowed as well. The jägers _would_ follow you, and Lucrezia has already demonstrated that she can fool them into believing she is Miss Heterodyne and convince them to obey her. It is too great a risk.”

Zeetha had been fooled too. She didn’t think she would be again, now that she knew someone possessing Agatha was a possibility. She didn’t think the jägers would be fooled so easily again either; Agatha’s mother had acted nothing like her. But she needed a better idea of how the Baron thought before she argued. She nodded jerkily.

The Baron relaxed another fraction. “Thank you.” The words sounded more rote than genuine, but Zeetha nodded anyway. “I am studying the machine that was used to place Lucrezia in Miss Heterodyne’s body, as well as the physiological effects of Lucrezia having control. Once I understand what was done to her, I will reverse it if at all possible.”

Zeetha was silent. Was that really all he would say? She couldn’t see her zumil, no one could, and he was working on the problem. Nothing about the specifics of what he was doing, or why, or when he would be done. But then, Zeetha wasn’t gifted; what would be the use in telling her? She wouldn’t understand anyway. (It had never been a problem before, but now that it mattered—) She nodded again. “I see. I am…” She struggled for the right words. It mostly wasn’t the language that made them difficult to find. “very grateful for the help.”

“Zeetha.” Zeetha tensed, all but jumped in surprise at the Baron’s use of her name, but it seemed like all he’d wanted was her attention. “I _will_ help Miss Heterodyne if it is possible to do so. Her… father and uncle were friends of mine, as were the people that raised her. You are not the only one that wants her safe.”

Zeetha blinked, and then blinked harder to keep back the way her eyes started to burn. “Thank you.”

(Zeetha wanted to think that maybe a ruthless conqueror wasn’t so bad if he was on her side, but he was. The people on the other side still mattered, even when you couldn’t hesitate to cut them down. Her mother had made sure to teach her that, too.)

There was another pause before the Baron spoke. “I believe the next thing we should discuss is Skifander.”

Zeetha’s hand would have tightened if she’d been holding something, but her swords were still strapped to her back, so her fingers twitched and she nodded. Her throat felt tight. “Do you know where it is?”

The Baron nodded, still watching Zeetha like he was evaluating her. “I do. I can build a ship to take you back if you’d like. It would take time, of course, perhaps a few months.”

“I.” Zeetha’s stomach was twisting again. This time it was definitely homesickness, and guilt. “I can’t leave until Agatha is safe. Or able to come with me.”

The Baron didn’t look surprised. He didn't look proud either, like Zeetha knew her mother would have. “In that case, the offer remains open for when you wish to return.” His eyes seemed to sharpen. “What will you do until then?”

_I don’t know_. “I will do whatever will keep me closest to Agatha.”

“I see.” The Baron was still watching her intently. “I’ve been told you’ve been reading while you were in the school.”

Urgh. Zeetha did _not_ want to stay there. But she didn’t know of anything else she could do and be sure to stay on the Castle. “I don’t know much about Europan history yet.”

“I see.” The Baron paused, but Zeetha couldn’t read his expression. “Europan traditions can be quite different from Skifandran traditions at times.”

Oh. So _that_ was it. Zeetha briefly considered being indirect, and then decided she didn’t care. “If you mean killing twins, my mother always taught me that was foolish anyway.”

The Baron stiffened, and then relaxed. Yep, that was it. “Very wise of her.”

Zeetha did not have patience for this. She folded her arms. “You’re Chump. You’re my father.” Her voice was flat, but she didn’t know how else she should feel. “And your son—Gilgamesh? He’s my twin. Isn’t he.”

The Baron stiffened again. At least he didn’t try to lie. “Yes.”

“I don’t care.” The Baron frowned, and Zeetha tried to keep her expression neutral. “I am here for Agatha. I don’t care what either of you do except for how it affects her.” Which wasn’t true, not completely. But Zeetha couldn’t protect every innocent person that found themselves on the wrong side of the Baron’s suspicions.

The Baron’s face became blank too, and Zeetha didn’t for a second think it wasn’t intentional. “You mentioned earlier that you intended to… bring your father back to Skifander.”

“I’ve seen your empire. I’ve seen what happens to people who get in the way of your empire.” Or who had the potential to, which was worse. “I think my mother will be happier if she never sees you again.”

Now the Baron’s face was hurt. Zeetha might feel guilty about that later. Now she hoped he wouldn’t take it out on Agatha. But he had other, stronger connections to Agatha than Zeetha, and maybe the hurt would make him _think_ about what he did. She could hope.

His voice was still controlled. “I see. And Gilgamesh?”

“I’m not going to do anything to him.” Even if Zeetha had wanted to, trying would only get herself and possibly Agatha killed. And all she _wanted_ to do was keep him as far away from Agatha as possible.

The Baron looked relieved. There was another pause before he spoke. “Very well. You may remain in the school until Miss Heterodyne is… restored to herself.”

Zeetha nodded and said nothing. She wouldn’t like the school, but she needed to learn more about Europa, the Baron and his Empire, and there probably wasn’t any better place for it.

“If there is nothing else, you may go.”

The bow Zeetha gave the Baron as she left was more formal than the one she’d started with. He didn’t return it, instead he went back to his paperwork as soon as it was clear she wouldn’t say anything else.

The walk back to the school felt like fleeing into a cage.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zeetha makes an ally. Krosp makes several.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was initially supposed to be two chapters, but neither half got quite long enough to stand on its own, and I decided to wait before adding another Tarvek or Gil segment; those will likely be the chapter after next. The next chapter is going to be the one where things start going unfixably wrong; I'm going to try to post a fluff chapter of another fic (Heterodyne/Development/further in that series, Bad Plans, maybe another) at the same time as chapters in this fic starting with the next one.
> 
> Warnings for this chapter: None, surprisingly. I'm writing Zeetha as having depression, but it's not really manifesting as anything warning-worthy yet.

The students that returned to the school over the next few weeks were no better than the first few to arrive, with very few exceptions. They were still nosy, still acted like Zeetha should know things she didn’t and tried to explain things she did know, looked at her swords the way they might watch a wild animal’s claws. Some of them talked about her, in languages other than Romanian; _she’s so strange_ , _I’m glad I’m not from there_ , _at least she hasn’t attacked anyone yet, we can put up with weird_. But a few of them approached her, usually quietly, when most of the others were busy or elsewhere, to ask about Agatha.

It was hard, at first, to answer them; the longer Agatha was gone the more she felt possessive, and didn’t want to tell students she didn’t like about her zumil, the spider clank she’d saved the circus from, the way she transformed on stage, the way she complained all through Zeetha’s training but never _stopped_. But once she started sharing, they did too; about a girl who’s woken up stumbling and unaware, and blossomed while in a prison. The changes in her (her tone, her posture, her wit) had been visible, but inexplicable at the time, Hezekiah Donowitz told her. Zeetha’s stories came easier after that; Agatha and the monster horse, Agatha and the new revenants, Agatha in Sturmhalten.

She found herself telling stories to all the students, soon, without quite intending to, drawing on illustrative trick of tone and gesture she’d learned with the circus. They felt ancient. The students were a good audience; the younger ones asked questions and exclaimed over things, but usually at the right points, and when she made a struggle sound glorious she saw understanding flit across some of the older students’ faces. They were still nosy, but after that more of their questions were about Agatha, and Zeetha could tolerate them a little easier. She liked them as an audience, when she told stories about Agatha every night before the youngest ones went to bed.

That didn’t mean there weren’t still _irritants_ among them. Iskra Kasun hadn’t particularly stood out to Zeetha before the girl (four or five, maybe; Zeetha avoided the littlest children when she could) came over after Zeetha told the story of when she chased Agatha through the Wastelands and then they fought a town’s worth of revenants. She tugged on the leg of Zeetha’s pants, and when Zeetha looked down, said “I want to learn.”

Zeetha blinked. “What, to tell stories?”

She scowled. “No, to fight!”

“That’s a good thing to learn,” Zeetha said.

Iskra beamed. “Good! You can teach me after lunch, my classes are in the morning. What do I need?”

Zeetha folded her arms. “What you need is a different teacher. I’m only allowed to teach my daughters.”

Iskra went back to scowling. “You’re teaching Miss Heterodyne!”

“She’s my zumil,” Zeetha said. “I’ve already explained that.”

“Well, I can be too!”

"No. I can only choose one."

Iskra puffed up, ready to object, but a hand landed on her shoulder before she could say any more.

Zulenna had been one of the earlier students to return to the school, but what stood out about her was her arrogance. Most of the students thought they were hiding their opinions of Zeetha from her; Zulenna seemed to go out of her way to make her disdain clear in the first few days. Since then she often listened, especially when Zeetha was talking about Agatha, but hadn’t said anything to Zeetha directly yet since being introduced. Now, she directed her comment to Iskra. “She only knows one way to fight, and it’s royal property of her house, Iskra. If you want to learn, come to the fencing room at two o’clock tomorrow and I’ll teach you. _And_ ,” she continued, and Iskra closed her mouth on whatever she’d been about to say, “go to sleep now. I don’t want you lazing about because you’re tired if I’m going to teach you.”

Iskra managed to stick her lower lip out, scowl, and look thoughtful at the same time. “Okay,” she said after a moment, and then looked up at Zeetha. “What _can_ you teach me?”

Well, Zeetha supposed it wouldn’t hurt to teach her some things. “When I notice you aren’t acting like a warrior, I’ll tell you how you should be thinking.”

Iskra considered that with slightly less scowling, then nodded. “Okay. Goodnight!” she added, suddenly cheerful as she turned and ran for what Zeetha assumed was her room.

Zulenna watched her go, then turned to Zeetha, her posture shifting even straighter. “I am Zulenna Luzhakna, Princess of Holfung-Borzoi.”

Zeetha pointedly did not straighten. Zulenna could take it how she liked. “Zeetha, daughter of Zantabraxus, War Princess of Skifander.”

Zulenna’s eyebrows rose. “I heard your father was the Baron.”

Zeetha shrugged. “It seems he was preoccupied with making an empire while I was growing up.”

Zulenna’s mouth twitched, but Zeetha couldn’t tell what expression it was toward. “Indeed. I’m curious about your fighting style; I assume secrecy does not prevent you from sparring?”

Zeetha snorted. “It would be worthless if it did.”

That time the twitch was definitely toward a smile. “Then, would you be interested in a spar?”

“Sounds good.” It had been much longer than Zeetha was used to since she’d actually _used_ her swords. A spar wasn’t a real fight, of course, but neither were the demonstrations she did on stage. Either was better than nothing. “When?”

“I’d prefer to go now, if you can.”

Odd. The older students didn’t go to bed when the youngest did, but they usually stayed in the common area, taking advantage of the younger kids’ absence to talk with each other about things they couldn’t discuss with the youngest. Zeetha wouldn’t mind missing it. “I have nothing else to do.”

The fencing room was large, empty, and dark until Zulenna turned a set of dials in the wall. (It also had a statue that Zeetha could almost believe was of Ashtara’s martial aspect. Zeetha gave her a respectful bow when she noticed. Ashtara wasn't limited by what a sculptor had intended.) Zeetha studied the fencing machine while Zulenna dressed; it looked interesting, but she wasn’t sure it would be a good workout.

Zulenna, as it turned out, was actually a very skilled opponent. That didn’t help her much, as her swords snapped quickly under Zeetha’s. She replaced them twice before giving up. “Well, that wasn’t what I had hoped to see, but I suppose it is illustrative. Perhaps we can try again later, if I can persuade the Baron to allow us stronger swords.”

Zeetha shrugged. “I’ll have time, I’m sure.” She read the books the other students were learning from, but she didn’t attend any classes; no one was sure what she already knew, and she didn’t know what any class taught.

“Indeed.” Zulenna left the pieces of the last sword in a basket by the wall before turning back to Zeetha, suddenly focused again. “While we’re here, there’s something else I wanted to talk about.”

Zeetha frowned as she fastened her swords back into their harness. That sort of comment usually didn’t proceed anything good. “What?”

“The Lady Heterodyne.” Zulenna leaned casually against a table near the wall. Zeetha could have faked it better. “You’ve mentioned several times that it is your duty to protect her now.”

“Until her training is complete, yes.”

“But your father holds her prisoner.”

Zeetha could see what Zulenna was getting at, but she couldn’t guess _why_. “She asked him to.”

“And you trust him to let her go?” Zulenna asked, voice as casual as her pose.

“I’m not sure.” Zeetha wasn’t concerned with being overheard, she’d already told the Baron as much, if not explicitly.

“What will you do if he does not?”

“Get her _out_.” The words came out sharper than Zeetha intended.

Zulenna stared at her for a moment, but didn’t look angry. Instead she nodded. “The Heterodyne Boys built my family’s defenses. Because of that, the Baron had to treat with us fairly, instead of removing us from power like he prefers to do. I owe the Heterodynes all I have.” She raised her chin, still meeting Zeetha’s eyes. “If the Lady Heterodyne needs help, tell me.”

That wasn’t what Zeetha had expected. Finding an ally, not just someone who admired Agatha as a story but who seemed willing to fight for her—she hadn’t even considered the possibility. She had to swallow to speak. “I—will. But if she needs the help… it will be dangerous.”

That made Zulenna look away. “I was killed the first time she escaped the Baron,” she said. “The Baron revived me and no one knows yet, but—I cannot inherit any longer. I am hardly a fit wife.” She looked back at Zeetha, chin up again. “But serving the Heterodyne—paying back my family’s debts—I can do that.”

Oh. Suddenly this made a lot more sense. Zeetha smiled. “I think Agatha will appreciate the help. And,” she eyed the broken swords, “I can’t teach you, either, but I think the jägers would.”

A sneer started to form on Zulenna’s face, but faded. She glanced down at the swords too. “You… may be right. Fencing is not my only skill, but I do not have much opportunity to practice with the others.”

“I know a few, if you’d like to meet them.”

Zeetha could still pick out a hint of a sneer, but mostly because she anticipated it. Zulenna nodded. “Please. Tomorrow, perhaps?”

Zeetha smiled. “I’ll need to find them, but I’ll look around in the morning. They’re probably still here.”

Zulenna nodded again. “That will work. Shall we go back now?”

“We’d probably better, before someone comes looking for us.”

“No one—” Zulenna paused. “It is unlikely that they would, but better to be sure they don't. Let's go.”

Zeetha followed Zulenna back to the student area, head spinning with relief. She had an ally.

~---~---~---~---~

“The heiress is a mystery, but her backers are Oublenmach and Strinbeck.”

Below a nearby table, Krosp’s ear flicked. He’d heard these two before; they weren’t the only ones running Mechanicsburg’s shadow government, but they were the center of it, and had final say. For all the casual tone, this conversation was important; they rarely spoke to each other about anything that mattered in such a public place.

“Their craft is a flash ship: a new type out of the Stockholm yards. They can make it any color they want. Very fancy. They clearly have a plan of some sort, but they’re rushed. Clumsy. Currently, she’s in, but held up in the first courtyard.” Vanamonde von Mekkan stopped stirring his newest coffee in order to tap the spoon pointedly against the side of the cup. Krosp began moving. “But I don’t see why you’re more worried about her than the rest. The Castle won’t spare her for being a girl or having backers.”

Carson von Mekkan frowned, and ignored the coffee that a waitress had placed in front of him. “She has backers, who invested a great deal of money in her. They wouldn't send her in if they didn't think she had a chance. And even if she is killed, someone is trying to take over _my town_. I don't like it.”

“Hm. Why becomes a good question.” Vanamonde’s voice sounded as if he were thinking out loud more than talking. “And why now.”

Carson waved the thought off brusquely. “Sturmhalten, of course! A girl announces herself to the world, claiming to be the Heterodyne, and now a girl appears here claiming to be the Heterodyne.” He frowned at Vanamonde. “Of course they’re connected.”

Vanamonde ignored the frown. “The Empire is hushing Sturmhalten up as well as they can. And that circus that claimed to be there has already moved on.”

“That drivel,” Carson muttered. Krosp briefly considered being offended on Agatha’s behalf as he picked his way over the last few human and table legs, but the play the Circus had put on about her _had_ been less than accurate.

Vanamonde continued as if uninterrupted. “Could they be the same girl?”

“Not at all,” Krosp growled. Carson didn’t move, so far as he could tell from under the table, but Vanamonde jumped. Heh. Krosp hauled himself up onto the seat beside Vanamonde. He had both of their full attention as he braced his arms on the tabletop. “Agatha is on Castle Wulfenbach until the Baron finishes helping her with something. She’s been there since Sturmhalten. She intends to come here as soon as she can.”

He did not get the reactions he wanted. Vanamonde stared down as if annoyed by Krosp’s existence; Carson simply looked unconvinced. “And how would you know _that_ , cat?”

Krosp glared at him. “I am Krosp the First, Emperor of Cats and Agatha's king. I got her off of Castle Wulfenbach, through the Wastelands, and I saw her go back. I came _here_ to get this place ready for her. So when she gets here,” Krosp grinned, “do you want to be ready for your Heterodyne or not?”

Carson and Vanamonde traded looks, which were still unconvinced. “And what is the Baron helping her with?” Vanamonde asked, sounding as skeptical as Carson.

Krosp’s ears flattened. “That’s not for discussion here.”

Carson frowned and stared at Krosp, suspicious.

“I think,” Vanamonde said slowly, “we should take this conversation underground.”

Krosp’s ears flattened further. “You had _better_ not mean a sewer.”

~---~---~---~---~

They did not mean a sewer. They meant a bar full of jägers. Very loud jägers, and a lot of them; there was a sharp scent, somewhere between blood and acid, that Krosp had learned long ago to associate with jägers, and down here it was overpowering. But he followed Carson and Vanamonde to a table along the side of the room, ignored the jägers’ suspicious glances and settled on the table top. There was no need to crawl around under things now, at least.

“Agatha was—”

“In a minute.” Vanamonde was watching the bar, and after a moment waved. Krosp assumed he’d caught someone’s eye, and sat. His tail twitched, though; now that he’d decided who to talk to, he didn’t want to wait.

He at least didn’t have to wait long. After a few quiet minutes of Carson scowling at Krosp and Vanamonde watching him thoughtfully, a blue-haired female jäger emerged from the crowd to grin at the table. Huh. Stronger scent than most, and lots of baubles on her dress; must be one of the important ones, Krosp decided.

“Hello, Mamma,” Vanamonde said.

“Hoy, keeds.” The jäger grinned. “Hyu iz here early.”

“This cat,” Carson said, still glowering, “says the Heterodyne girl in Sturmhalten is the real thing, and that she’s been on Castle Wulfenbach since.”

The jäger’s gaze was suddenly a lot more intense, and fully focused on Krosp. “Iz dot so.”

Krosp straightened, and made sure his fur stayed flat. “It is. And she’s coming here as soon as she can.”

She kept frowning at him for a moment, then turned with no warning to the room, pulled out a whistle, and blew it. Loudly.

Krosp flattened his ears automatically, and took a second to confirm that the silence was because the entire bar had actually gone quiet, and not because he’d gone deaf. It was only _slightly_ mollifying to see that a few of the nearest jägers had clapped hands over their ears too.

“Who hez been on Kestle Wulfenbach in de lest two veeks?” Mamma barked. She probably could have been heard through the whole bar even if it hadn’t been quiet.

“Stosh vas,” a voice offered from the crowd.

“Und Marcu,” another voice added.

“Bring Stosh here,” Mamma said. A handful of jägers immediately stood and headed toward a door in the far wall. “ _In_ der bed!”

So that was how they soon ended up with a bandaged and, to judge by the smell, heavily drugged jäger in a bed next to their table, and several others crowding into nearby tables to listen in. Krosp thought they were trying to be subtle.

“Zo.” Mamma Gkika (as her name turned out to actually be) had slid into a seat next to Carson, and was watching Krosp with only slightly less intensity than she’d shown after Carson’s comment. “Hyu say hyu know a Heterodyne.”

Krosp resettled himself. That he was now slightly further from the jäger was purely coincidence. “Punch and Judy said so.”

Carson stared at Krosp, surprised as well as disbelieving. Vanamonde was also staring, with a raised eyebrow. Mamma Gkika’s eyes had narrowed. “Hy tink hyu should eksplain vot hyu know about her.”

Krosp had been hoping for that. He wrapped his tail around his feet, and began explaining. She’d been kind when he met her; she’d treated him like a person instead of a project, so he decided to help her. Punch and Judy appeared and were killed in her escape. They ended up in the Wastelands, and then with the Heterodyne Circus.

“Master Payne’s?” Vanamonde interrupted to confirm.

Krosp gave him an annoyed glare, since he was human and probably wouldn’t understand the tail flick. “Yes.”

“They were here recently,” Vanamonde said to Gkika. “Had a new show about a Heterodyne girl they claimed to have traveled with.”

Krosp snorted. “They did, but the show’s as accurate as any of their Heterodyne stories.”

Carson was glaring at Krosp. “The Heterodyne plays get the details wrong, but they're based on real events. Their play was a tragedy. It ended with her surrendering herself to the Baron to be killed.”

Krosp waited for the growls and hisses that had suddenly started in the room to quiet before answering. “She surrendered herself to him to be _fixed_.”

“Zo sumtink heppened to her.”

“She said….” Krosp let his tail flick as he tried to recall her exact words. “She said that the Prince of Sturmhalten wanted to replace her with the Other, but the geisterdamen ended up doing it. But instead of being replaced they’re both in her head now. She went to the Baron to fix it.”

Mamma Gkika was holding onto the edge of the table. It would have looked casual, if her eyes weren’t narrowed, her teeth bared, and the wood splintering beneath her hand. “Hy see.”

“Iz true.” Stosh sounded like he was cringing, almost, as he said it. “Hy saw her on Kestle Wulfenbach de first time, she found vun of de Baron’s sekret doors. Und dis time, Hy hear from Oggie, she vent missink in Sturmhalten und vhen she get out, Lukhrezhia iz in her head. Iz true.”

The questioning took on another tone after that. They believed Krosp, now, or at least the jägers did. And they were worried, the entire great crowd of them calling out questions whenever Mamma Gkika paused too long in hers. Carson and Vanamonde were quiet until the jägers’ questions began to repeat; then Carson cut them off, and insisted on planning something productive.

Krosp had less to do with that; he listened, but Carson and Vanamonde were clever, and Mamma Gkika built well on their ideas. Krosp corrected them sometimes, but mostly about what Agatha would want: not to be kidnapped away from the Baron before she was fixed, definitely to stay away from him afterwards.

Their preparations had to be subtle, and not dependent on Agatha arriving at a particular time; Vanamonde went off after a few hours to begin organizing covert collection and storage of the materials necessary to fix the town’s broken defenses as quickly as possible, and identifying and tracking spies so they could be removed whenever desired. Carson stayed to continue discussing military plans with Mamma Gkika ( _General_ Gkika, how many names did she have, really); mostly, how many townspeople they could train without being caught, and what the present jägers—mostly injured badly enough to be limited by it—could do. They said “if” war was necessary, but Krosp thought from their grins that they hoped it would be.

He followed Carson home, after the planning wound down late into the night. (Krosp may have taken a few naps once the discussions got into the town military.) It was supposed to be a nice, quiet walk home, with some tasty fish at the end.

Instead, halfway there, an inhuman scream echoed through the air. Krosp couldn’t tell the source, and only realized it had drowned out another scream when he saw that Carson had collapsed on the street beside him.

Then he noticed that every mechanical thing in the city had gone still.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm thinking that the jäger accent is _mostly_ tradition, but can also include an element of respect when it comes to names and titles. Mostly, the jägers will generally drop the accent in order to pronounce names and titles correctly; if they feel like disrespecting someone, applying the accent to that person's name is a way to do it. Or if they _really hate_ someone whose name actually doesn't get too mangled by the jäger accent, some jägers might end up deliberately mangling it anyway, which is why Stosh pronounces "Lucrezia" the way he does.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Klaus. Klaus. _Klaus_. KLAUS NO.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...Okay, well _this_ time I'm blaming the lateness on finals. Finals are a legitimate reason, right?
> 
> Anyway! This is the chapter in which everything goes permanently wrong, so it _should_ be one of the worse ones. As apology/antidote, a new fic/chapter from the Heterodyne series is going up after this, so you can read that afterwards if you want.

In the first two days after the battle of Sturmhalten, the Heterodyne girl’s body remained asleep. That was expected; the sedative Klaus had given her had been meant to last that long, but he couldn’t know what modifications Lucrezia might have made to her new body. Even the girl herself was a spark, and could have done any number of things. So the girl’s body remained strapped in a life-supporting system of restraints in a secret room of one of the auxiliary prison ships, while Klaus watched from an adjacent room, connected by a window that should be out of Lucrezia’s sight when she woke up.

A lot of paperwork got done. Boris was pleased, though with all the paperwork the battle had caused Klaus was still behind.

Klaus became steadily more irritated and tense, and kept checking the door to the girl’s cell, trying to think of ways to allow it to open closer to silently. He had to invent a small machine to detect the sound it did make, but he didn’t know what Lucrezia or her daughter had done, perhaps one of them had enhanced her hearing somehow….

~---~---~---~---~

When the body did wake up, Lucrezia was in control. She was shocked, then furious, fighting the straps that held her still, screaming threats, promises, bribes; begging for someone, anyone, _help me, save me, please!_

Klaus watched, and—

— _poison, betrayal; he couldn’t speak clearly, vision blurring; “goodbye, darling.” Losing hold, losing consciousness, desperation, struggling and falling anyway, no, no, no, he didn’t want to die_ —

—did nothing.

Lucrezia started crying.

~---~---~---~---~

Lucrezia’s daughter woke hours later, after Lucrezia had exhausted herself struggling and screaming. She was alarmed, too, at first, but not angry. She didn’t fight the restraints, didn’t threaten, and only called “Hello? Someone? I need to talk to the Baron!”

She sounded just like Lucrezia did when she was scared.

But she was—however unwillingly, however temporarily, to be ascertained later—working against Lucrezia, so Klaus only waited a few minutes to be certain of her identity before entering the room. She didn’t seem to react to the sound of the door.

She twitched when he came into her sight, but then relaxed. “Oh. It worked. Good.”

“What worked?” Klaus did not relax. Instead, her words made him much more wary; what else had she done? Something he hadn’t even noticed? How much could she have done without his realization, that she would be able to tell just from seeing him?

“Surrendering. I was afraid that—I don’t know—the geisterdamen might have kidnapped me again, or something. I don’t think it was likely!” she added hastily as Klaus relaxed slightly. “But, well. I was still worried. Because of the Other, you know.”

Klaus did indeed know. _He_ still hadn’t stopped worrying that this was Lucrezia too, even if there was no reason to think so. “I see. The jägers did significant damage to the geisterdamen forces already, and I intend to ask them to continue until the geisterdamen have been wiped out. I do not think they will refuse.” If they even hesitated, he’d consider it proof that Lucrezia had somehow managed to work out effective mind control on them, too. Hunting down the geisterdamen would feed into everything the jägers wanted and believed.

“Oh.” She frowned, slightly, then sighed. “That seems—but they _do_ worship the Other. I guess it’s necessary, then.”

“They worship her?” Klaus asked sharply.

“Oh, yes. One of them told me about it—I can tell you?” Lucrezia’s daughter shifted in the restraints, and Klaus made a note to see if he couldn’t adjust them to be more comfortable without risking security.

“Please.”

“I was in a cell with the geisterdamen for a while before they put the Other in me.” She paused to heterodyne, and Klaus made a note to ask how that had happened sometime. “Only one of them—Vrin—could speak Romanian, but she told me that the Other is their goddess, they call her their Eternal Lady….”

~---~---~---~---~

The Heterodyne girl was eager to share what she knew, but little of it was helpful, and what was useful was worrying. Her descriptions of being controlled—“like I’m sleeping, but underwater, and there’s pressure so I can’t wake up”—and what she eventually settled on calling the summoning throne—“lots of electricity, and some sort of note—not at all like heterodyning, but it was still weird”—told Klaus nothing that could be used to free her. The only useful information was that the geisterdamen had come from another world—which meant there very well might be more of them that could arrive on Earth when the ones already present were eliminated. Klaus almost hoped they would; he’d rather have a larger fight soon than the threat of one always hanging overhead….

~---~---~---~---~

Lucrezia wasn’t startled the second time she woke up, but she was just as angry, just as desperate. She screamed herself hoarse again, begged in a cracked, whispery voice, and then cried.

Klaus waited until she seemed to be almost asleep, then pressed a button to release a sedative gas into the cell. Once she was asleep and the gas had been cleared out, he went in to attach wires and electrodes, mostly in places she wouldn’t notice, and a small set of needles that would draw blood, run it through a machine that analyzed and recorded its chemical composition, and then directed it back into a vein, just an inch away from where it was pulled out.

It would be so much more efficient if he could simply cut Lucrezia up as needed, but he _had_ promised the Heterodyne girl that he wouldn’t damage her if he could avoid it.

He left while the sedative worked itself out of her system. He needed to be seen in the Castle regularly, for longer than it took to hand paperwork to Boris and pick up more.

~---~---~---~---~

The second time the sedative wore off, it was the Heterodyne girl that woke up first.

She had nothing to say that was any more useful than the last time, and apart from initially noticing the new electrodes and needles, she ignored them.

Klaus did determine a way to tell which was in charge. She’d only been half trained, he remembered; he could finish teaching her, at least what a spark would need to know. He needed to talk to her to get data on her reactions and personality anyway; he could explain a theory or law each time he spoke to her, and each time check that she remembered what he had explained before. Then he would know if Lucrezia ever managed to impersonate her. She seemed happy enough with the plan.

~---~---~---~---~

Lucrezia seemed to have given up on screaming. She just cried.

~---~---~---~---~

She tried screaming again when Klaus finally spoke to her. Only a little—she saw he was unimpressed, and switched to begging, then promises. “Anything you want, please, I’ll do anything you want—”

“Tell me how your summoning engine works.”

“What—the Beacon Engine? Really, Klaus, you can’t think of anything more interesting than that?”

Klaus wasn’t sure if it was more disturbing that Lucrezia was trying to seduce him while immobilized in a prison he controlled, that she thought he might fall for it after the last time he’d seen her, or that she didn’t even seem to notice she was using her daughter’s body to do it. He left.

~---~---~---~---~

He had to come back, of course. He needed the data. But every word made him hate her more.

~---~---~---~---~

The Sturmvoraus boy was unnervingly helpful. Klaus, and even any of his people that he sent, barely even had to ask; the boy provided information like a fountain. The biochemistry of slaver wasps and the parasites they carried, Lucrezia’s supporters within his family’s network and outside of it, where to find all the notes his father kept on the slaver wasps, beacon engine, and geisterdamen. What Lucrezia had taught him, what she’d done to the engine to summon herself into a clank head. Names and fragments of descriptions of a dozen girls sacrificed to the engine, and what his father thought had killed them. His theories to make people immune to slaver wasp control, and reverse the beacon engine’s effect on the Heterodyne girl.

They were remarkably good theories.

He made no mention of his descent from the Storm King, the plans for him to rule Europa with a fake Heterodyne girl, or the letter his father had received that seemed to promise an assassination attempt on Gilgamesh.

Klaus supposed he was better at finding things than the boy or his father was at hiding them.

He supposed if he had to deal with evil, he’d rather it take the form of arrogant fools than clever enemies.

~---~---~---~---~

The beacon engine looked—if you stretched—like a throne. Klaus wasn’t surprised. Lucrezia would have liked to have been called back into one, certainly.

He enjoyed dismantling it.

~---~---~---~---~

The jägers were restless, appeased by the assignment to hunt the geisterdamen, but only just. Klaus hated to bring the Generals in to see Lucrezia’s daughter, but she swore she would only tell them to help Klaus and leave her imprisoned until Lucrezia had been removed, and kept her word.

He let the Generals wait around long enough to see Lucrezia take back over, hand over the button to release an especially powerful sedative that he had the antidote to in his pocket. She did try ordering them to free her, but they were—thankfully—not fooled.

Klaus thought that had there been another Heterodyne child available to inherit, Zog might very well have strangled Lucrezia for stealing a Heterodyne body.

The jägers were no happier after that, but seemed to regard Klaus as an ally again.

~---~---~---~---~

The physical differences between when Lucrezia had control and when her daughter did were hard to discern, quite possibly only there because of the different mental states they tended to be in.

Still, their personalities were quite distinct; Klaus had almost given up on the data and decided to simply observe them to determine the difference. He knew Lucrezia well, after all, and was coming to know her daughter well too.

Until he asked Lucrezia’s daughter about the theory he’d taught her the previous time they spoke, and she didn’t remember it at all.

He had been certain it was the daughter. Lucrezia had fooled him again.

~---~---~---~---~

Studying Lucrezia and her daughter told Klaus nothing useful. Studying the beacon engine produced results, but only ones that led to—more or less—the same theories the Sturmvoraus boy had shared. Klaus made some changes, but they were minor ones, more refinement than true change.

He didn’t trust the boy’s theories, but he couldn’t find or come up with any others that weren't completely absurd, and it had been a month and a half. Lucrezia’s daughter was becoming listless. (So was Lucrezia, but Klaus wasn’t bothered by that.)

He would try it. Something would go wrong, he was certain—but what good was being a spark if he couldn’t fix things like that in the middle of an experiment? Something—or many somethings—would go wrong, he’d fix it, ideally Lucrezia would be removed, and at least he would have new information.

~---~---~---~---~

Nothing went wrong.

He didn’t trust it.

It was too late to undo.

~---~---~---~---~

The sedative took longer than expected to wear off. Klaus would normally have attributed that to healing—even unconscious whichever of them had been in control had spent a lot of time screaming; there wasn’t really any way to extract a mind from its host brain without causing some injury in the process—but now he didn’t trust it. It might only be that she was healing, it could be anything else.

It wore off finally, and one of them slowly blinked awake. Either it was Lucrezia’s daughter, or Lucrezia was acting like her again, because she glanced around and then brightened. “Oh. Oh! Herr Baron, are you here? Did you do something? I think it worked! I can’t feel her anymore!”

It should have been good news. But he’d used the Sturmvoraus boy’s theories, and made no changes during the experiment; it was terrifying. Something had to have gone wrong, it couldn’t be this easy. The boy wouldn’t have told the truth about something so damaging to his mistress’s plans.

Still, he needed information. Klaus moved around, and—one of them beamed at him. “Herr Baron, it worked! She’s gone!”

Her face fell slightly when he didn’t respond, though not so much that she stopped smiling. “Herr Baron?”

“I am glad you feel better.”

She brightened again. “Oh, yes, so much better! I could always feel her trying to get control, and now she’s gone, she’s not there at all anymore! It’s like she wasn’t ever there at all!”

“That is good news,” Klaus said automatically. It was terrifying news, and he didn’t know what it meant. Was this Lucrezia lying to him? Was she actually gone—what sort of game was the Sturmvoraus boy playing, if she was? The thought of someone who could use the Other as a tool—no. Klaus didn’t even want to imagine it. But he had to consider the possibility….

What if the boy’s theories hadn’t been damaging to Lucrezia? What if his suggestions had—say—sent her into a dormant state, to reemerge later? It would be unusually humble of Lucrezia to build in such a failsafe, but it was possible. It had been twenty years since he saw her, after all; people changed in that time.

She had probably been fooling him all along, in fact, with that thought—he’d thought she hadn’t changed at all. Obviously she had.

So there were at least two possibilities: that this was Lucrezia, somehow aware of the experiment she'd been unconscious for, acting as her daughter and claiming that she had been erased to trick him into releasing her, or that this was her daughter, and Lucrezia had been somehow suppressed and hidden, able to reemerge once she was out of Klaus’s power.

Or—perhaps her daughter had never been there at all. Her beacon engine had been capable of repeatedly summoning minds, and of adding a mind to an already occupied body; what if the mind that he’d thought was Lucrezia’s daughter was only a second Lucrezia?

Possible. Very possible. It would make getting her daughter back far more difficult….

“Herr Baron?”

She looked uncertain, and yet still happy.

Lucrezia never had been able to hide excitement when she was sure she’d won.

“I am glad that progress has been made.” Hm. Klaus sounded much too clearly like he was speaking to a politician, but it was difficult enough to keep his voice neutral. “I would like to perform more tests in order to be sure, however.”

“Oh.” She looked disappointed, but not worried. She must be very certain of—whichever trick it was she was pulling. “Well, okay, I guess. What do you need me to do?”

Klaus could use her cooperation somehow, even if it was faked. Or—no, trying to use the Sturmvoraus boy’s cooperation had been what caused this problem in the first place. He wouldn’t make that mistake again. “Be patient, at the moment. I will let you know when there is anything else you can do.”

She sighed. “Oh. Can you tell me what you did, then?”

“I’ll show you the notes later,” he promised. He’d kill every living thing in the Empire first; it would be kinder to them.

~---~---~---~---~

“Is there anything I can do yet?”

“Not yet.”

~---~---~---~---~

“I—Herr Baron, I don’t know what tests you’ve been doing, but she’s gone. It’s been—how long has it been?”

“Two weeks.” It had been another month, and he still had found nothing, but there was no way to tell time in Lucrezia’s cell; she wouldn’t know.

“Two weeks, then—and I haven’t felt her at _all_ , not once. She’s gone, I promise, I would know….”

“I’m not certain yet. Be patient.”

~---~---~---~---~

“Herr Baron, please, she’s gone! There’s nothing left to test, she’s been gone, please, let me out! I won’t bother you, I just want to go home!”

“Not yet. Soon.”

~---~---~---~---~

“I want out, I’ll do whatever you want, please, let me go, please….”


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gil never got out of the habit of sneaking into places he isn't supposed to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is... even later than the last chapter. >.> I'm blaming this one on the holidays. On which note: Merry Christmas, if you celebrate it; happy holidays if you celebrate others, and if not, I hope you're enjoying the season regardless!
> 
> ...Chapters of the ultimate angst fic are a _totally legitimate_ choice of present. Yes.
> 
> Warnings for this chapter: I don't think there are any, except for general unhappiness.
> 
> Klaus, I know you are worried about Gil when he spontaneously vanishes from where he's supposed to be, but this is _not the way to show it_.
> 
> This chapter also has a perspective flip, which is now posted! If you'd like Gil's POV on this, look [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5539721).

Tarvek had never, upon reflection, been outside of a prison. He was born to be the Storm King, and raised to be Lucrezia Heterodyne's chief follower; those roles had wrapped themselves around him like molds, pressing against his every action and into every thought no matter where he went. Tarvek wanted to survive, and therefore very little else of what he wanted mattered; all the power and significance went to what others wanted from him, or feared that he could someday take away.

A physical prison was still vastly different. There had been places he wasn’t supposed to leave before, but Gil had soon shown Tarvek ways out of the school, and even before he knew the unguarded ways out the school had been large and full of distractions. He hadn’t been able to get out of Sturmhalten for most of his life, but it had also been large, most of the people willing to make way for Tarvek’s wishes, and a shelter as well as trap, even if the cold seeped into his skin like an itch that he could never get rid of.

A physical prison was different, and—disturbing; Tarvek couldn’t show it, couldn’t admit it, but he had to be able to recognize his own emotions and being locked in a room that seemed to have been designed to advertise its purpose was disturbing him in ways he couldn’t control. The walls, floor and ceiling were plain, bare metal; the hospital cot had been replaced by an even plainer one. (Tarvek had tried sleeping on the floor once to test whether it was actually worse, and it was, but he thought with a rug it might not be.)

He was given clothes; old, worn, somehow still rough, often with stains that hadn’t quite been washed out. Most of the time they didn’t do more than approximately fit, and there were never shoes. He was given enough food, but it too was bland and coarse, and he was only given it once a day. No one would explain why; it could have been a good strategy to mess up his sense of time and weaken him psychologically, but Tarvek was telling them whatever they wanted, and the light turned on in the morning and off in the evening so regularly that he suspected it might be controlled by clockwork. There was no possible way he could misjudge the days as the room was filled with blindingly bright light or absolute darkness. No light even seeped through the door; he had suspected at first that the hallway might also be kept dark when his room was, but he’d seen when it opened that the door simply had a larger sheet of metal covering the cracks inside of it, keeping out the light and preventing him from getting to anything like a lock he might have been able to pick.

Tarvek collected what information he could, and pieced it together in his head in every combination, like a puzzle with most of the pieces missing. It was a puzzle with most of the pieces missing; the only information Tarvek had was what he could observe himself, or guess from the questions he was asked. No one told him anything about Agatha, or the Muses, or Sturmhalten, or its people. (His, he was the only member of the family left, no one left had the right to say otherwise, they were all officially _his_ people to rule and protect, he would be so much better than they'd had before if he could just _get to them_.) No one told him anything else, either, but those four were the worst. One guard, young and self-conscious in his uniform, had apologetically told Tarvek that it was the Baron's orders, like he couldn't have guessed on his own. Still, it could have been an opening, so he'd thanked the guard kindly, but he'd never seen that guard again, and after that the guards never spoke to him at all except to order him to move away from the door.

The first week Tarvek had been interrogated often; enough so that he spent the rest of his time sleeping, or trying to when the light was on. He usually woke as the door opened, too late to fully compose himself before he was seen. He saw doctors, too, but they only came with interrogators, and said nothing that didn't relate to Tarvek's wounds.

The interrogators were varied, and he recognized only some of them; the Baron, his chief assistant, captains of various military units, the jäger Generals. Some were coldly professional, some spat insults, a few were physically aggressive; surprisingly, the jägers were among the professional set. Their anger was tangible anyway, and all three were too huge not to loom even if there had been anything for them to sit on. It was—intimidating; Tarvek was not outclassed half as often as he made it seem, but even if he'd been uninjured and in perfect condition he would have been then.

After the first week the interrogators slowed, eventually dropping down to a single woman who hadn't introduced herself. She came once a day, bringing her own chair and sat with Tarvek for three hours, talking. He knew that strategy, and he could have resisted it, but he wanted the Other gone and he wanted them to know he did. So he went along with it, answering every question in detail no matter how innocuous it was, and explaining things she wouldn't know to ask about as he thought of them. The Storm King was left out, of course, and Gil Holzfäller’s real parentage, and what little he knew of Agatha Heterodyne was angled to help her, but that was all. No one would have ever known to ask about the Storm King or Holzfäller, so he wasn't even being evasive. The vulnerability scared him, sometimes, he couldn't remember ever being this honest, and sometimes he had to fight to get the words out and keep the shivers down, but it was the best strategy for now.

As easy as the days were to count, the hours were difficult. Tarvek thought that the woman who still visited him was coming at approximately the same time each day, but he couldn’t tell if the timing was exact. Whether it was or not, she arrived at midday, and Tarvek hadn’t been woken up by anyone after the second week.

He’d learned as a child to wake up whenever anyone else entered the room he was in, so he woke as the door opened. The room was still dark, and he could hear the door but not see anything, so the hallway was too. He heard the door close as he debated whether to sit up or not; whoever this was was being quiet, but not quiet enough for any decent sort of assassin. Whether he should reveal that he woke up easily hadn’t come up yet; while injured he really had only been woken as people arrived—always noisily—and since he’d been better people only arrived during the day. There was no reason to reveal it, so he closed his eyes again and stayed still.

The light came on, and hurt his eyes even through his eyelids. Not surprising, and he was able to prevent himself from reacting.

“I know you don’t sleep that heavily, Sturmvoraus.”

 _That_ was surprising. Tarvek hated surprises. It was almost impossible to hide his reactions to them, since he couldn’t prepare for what he didn’t expect; no one could. Which made surprising others useful, and being surprised horribly dangerous. His eyes opened, then squeezed shut again, still blinded by the light. Ugh, now he couldn’t pretend he didn’t wake up easily, and someone knew he had tried to pretend—

There was no point in continuing. He sat up, hand over his eyes even though they were still closed, and mind racing. Who could possibly know that Tarvek didn’t sleep heavily—even his family who should expect him to wake as easily as they did shouldn’t know, he’d made a very specific point of pretending to sleep heavily… and if he’d slipped up and anyone had learned otherwise, they wouldn’t have bothered saying so; they’d have taken the chance to get close and kill him. So who—

“The light isn’t that bad and I don’t have much time. Get out of your head.”

—Tarvek knew that voice. He dropped his hand to stare, still squinting against the light (which certainly _was_ that bad), and—that was Gil.

Tarvek had expected any number of things, but Gil Holzfäller was not one of them. Why was he—he couldn’t possibly be here to help Tarvek, they were enemies now, Paris had proven that quite conclusively, but why was he even _on_ Castle Wulfenbach? Surely the Baron didn’t employ people like Gil as prison guards—and he wasn’t wearing a uniform…. “Holzfäller.” Tarvek’s voice was flat; better that than bewildered.

Gil stared at him, as if he were the one whose presence was confusing. “…No….”

“Oh. You found out.” Had the Baron told him? Had that been what caused his change in Paris; had Gil been so desperate for family that he’d decided he was trapped by his father’s flaws when he found out? His flaws were a completely different set from Teufel’s, but Gil would not be the first case of an evil spark’s son giving up on being any good himself….

“Yes.” Gil was still staring like Tarvek was the strange one. “It was rather hard to miss, with the announcement and all.”

“ _Announcement_?” Someone had _announced_ who Gil was? To who? When? It must have been recent, or Tarvek would have heard of it. And _why_? The only possible goal could be to kill him, but anyone with the resources to find out who Gil was would certainly have the resources to send an assassin themselves, and a better chance at not being found out if they did. “Who did that?” Tarvek could invite—

—Tarvek couldn’t invite Gil anywhere. Sturmhalten might very well be gone entirely, Tarvek was a prisoner, none of the Smoke Knights could be trusted to follow his orders anyway now that he’d been captured, and even if he’d been able to invite Gil to Sturmhalten and protect him, Gil would refuse it. He couldn’t do anything. Except clench his fists, but that would do no good, so he relaxed them as soon as he noticed he had.

“Er….” Gil was still acting casual, like _Tarvek_ was wrong to react, like _half the assassins on the continent_ wouldn’t be after him now, whether they were hired for it or not. “The Baron did.”

Damn the Baron _right to Hell_.

Tarvek knew better than to snarl his thoughts out loud, but he stood up. Sitting still was too difficult. (He did not start pacing. It would be too revealing.)

Why? Why would the Baron have announced that, after hiding Gil for, what, over fifteen years? There was no possible way for that information getting out to end except with Gil dead. Announcing Teufel’s son was nothing but a slow assassination—and the Baron didn’t answer to anyone, but what could he _possibly_ gain from it? Was this just his way of disposing of an experiment that was no longer interesting?

It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter why the Baron wanted Gil dead; it mattered that he did, and that there was nothing—

—there might be something Tarvek could do about it. “Is Sturmhalten still intact?”

“What? What does that—”

“Just answer!” Tarvek snapped. Gil was taking this far too casually; how could he possibly _not be worried_?

Gil huffed and folded his arms, like it was an unreasonable question. “Might have a few new scratches and the governor might have rearranged the furniture, but yes, it’s fine.”

Governor. So there were definitely no plans for Tarvek to be free. Whatever; he couldn’t do anything about that now. “Good. Go there, Moxana was in one of my secret labs, I’m sure you can find it, if you haven’t heard a commotion about a Muse being found she probably still is. You need to… leave the continent, anyway, she can help you. Tell her I said to help you.” And Tinka, broken Tinka—but delicate mechanics weren’t Gil’s specialty, and he’d have a hard enough time escaping burdened by one Muse that couldn’t move herself. Tinka had no predictive talents to make up for the way she’d slow him down; Tarvek would have to find someone else to help her.

Gil stared, like Tarvek was raving, and kept staring until Tarvek was only just resisting the urge to pick him up and _throw_ him toward Sturmhalten. When he cleared his throat and spoke it was slow, the words carefully chosen. “Er… Sturmvoraus… who, exactly, do you think I am?”

Oh yes, because _Tarvek’s_ knowledge was the point here. He folded his arms. But if it would get Gil to cooperate. “Teufel. You’re Teufel’s son. Which _shouldn’t matter_ , but it _will_ , and you did _not_ help yourself in Paris. You need to leave before the assassins find you.”

“Ah. No,” Gil said, blinking. “I’m not.”

Tarvek resisted throwing Gil at Sturmhalten in exasperation only because there were walls in the way. “That pig spark story was _absolute nonsense_ , you can’t possibly still believe it.”

“It was,” Gil agreed. “But I’m still not Teufel’s son.”

“Who else’s—”

Who else’s son would be worth the Baron’s effort hiding, and announcing?

That—that explained so much.

Tarvek backed up a step so he could sit back down on the bed. “Wulfenbach.”

Gil nodded.

Gilgamesh Wulfenbach.

It explained _so much_.

When they were caught—Tarvek had _known_ the Baron was hiding something; he’d wondered how he got Gil on his side. Now he knew. Gil had always been desperate for family—all the Baron would have had to do would be to promise to tell Gil who his family was, and Gil would have done whatever he’d asked. It wouldn’t matter that Tarvek had promised to help him too; the Baron had set himself up as the one with the answers. (And, to be fair, the answer Tarvek had found had been wrong.) And if the Baron had actually _told_ Gil—

It certainly explained why Tarvek had never gotten a letter back. He’d assumed it was because he’d sent the first one after writing it in a fit of accusation, and given up after the second, but—Gil would have done anything for family. Probably he’d never even read them.

“I see.” There wasn’t anything else he could say. Gilgamesh Wulfenbach….

It was better, then, that they hadn’t been friends for long. They certainly couldn’t be now.

“Tell me about Agatha,” Gil said.

The order brought Tarvek’s attention back to Gil. Why would—oh, yes, Agatha had mentioned working with the Baron’s son when she was drugged at dinner. Knowing that Gilgamesh Wulfenbach was actually Gilgamesh Holzfäller—Tarvek scowled. “She’s much too good for _you_ , to start with. Leave her alone.”

Gil folded his arms and glared. “Says the man in prison for attempting to replace her with the Other.”

“I did _not!_ ” Tarvek was on his feet and halfway to punching Gil in the face when he noticed Gil starting back, and stopped himself. He stayed standing, and glared back. “My _father_ and the geisterdamen did that! I tried to get her _out!_ ” He’d failed—he’d completely failed, he’d only gotten Tinka broken too, he should have shown her out _himself_ and damn the consequences of being seen, at worst Agatha would still have been caught, Tarvek would have been caught (dead) and Tinka would have been no worse off, but—he hadn’t known, he’d thought Tinka would be enough after she’d brought Moxana. He’d _tried_. (As if trying ever counted.)

“Your father was already dead. He didn’t do it.” Gil didn’t look like he believed Tarvek at all. But he _did_ look like he was listening….

Tarvek sat back down, and folded his arms. It would make standing back up that bit more awkward, he’d catch himself sooner if Gil said anything like that again. He didn’t _want_ to talk about this, especially not with Gil. But he’d been explaining it to everyone _else_ who came by, so why not? Gil had probably helped the Baron work on Agatha, anyway. And if they’d worked together before, maybe they were again. Maybe some of what Tarvek said would get back to her. Shame he probably couldn’t pass on a warning about what sort of guy Gil was… though by this point she’d probably noticed. And anyway, Agatha had fought down the Other from her own mind, and beaten Vrin with a broom and command voice; she’d be able to handle Gil. She’d be okay.

Well, fine. Tarvek would explain. “He started to. He recognized her in the theater.”

“How?”

“Her voice.” Tarvek could still remember it; it echoed in his mind, like particularly strong music, hard to forget and easy to recall. Intimidating and enticing. (He could see, maybe, why his father had fallen so far for her mother’s sake, if she sounded like that.) “They sound the same, it’s how Lucrezia controls the revenants. They—” knelt, every single one of them, terrified and worshipful, and the clank Anevka had them killed for it “—responded, when she was acting, and he recognized the way she sounded. The harmonic analysis machines confirmed it.”

“Harmonic analysis machines?” Gil echoed, disbelieving. “In a theater?”

“He’s been searching for Lucrezia’s daughter for fifteen years,” Tarvek snapped. “There are voice analysis machines everywhere he could put them.” Fewer than there had once been, but only because Tarvek had figured out how to make the old ones cover more area, and the least hidden ones had been removed so no visitors would suspect.

Gil accepted that, apparently. “So what happened when he recognized her?”

“He invited her to dinner.” It wasn’t how he got girls into the castle every time, but it often was. “Her drink had a truth poison, and he—”

“ _Poison_?” Gil snarled. He had clenched his fists and started leaning toward Tarvek, which might have been intimidating if Tarvek didn’t know how to choke him before he could take another step.

“Truth _serum_ , then, if you want to sound _pretty_ about it,” Tarvek snapped. “It didn’t _hurt_ her. It made her start babbling, and stop worrying. It’s not much different from being drunk.” Gil relaxed again, even though he was still scowling, and his nod looked sharp. Tarvek continued. “She told us who she was, and my father decided to put her in the Beacon Engine immediately.”

“That’s the thing that put the Other in her?”

“Yes, but not that time. Anevka—Anevka’s ghost killed him before he could.” Anevka probably would have too, but Tarvek needed to remember that they were different. “She wanted me to copy A—Miss Heterodyne’s voice for her to use, so that she could command the geisterdamen and revenants.” And use them to ferment revolution and chaos to destabilize the Empire, but Gil didn’t need to know _that_ part. “The geisterdamen only barely trusted my father, and they didn’t like either of us, so we didn’t know what they’d do with him dead.”

Gil was still listening. Tarvek unfolded his arms, in case he had to get out of the way. _He_ didn’t like this part; Gil wouldn’t, and would probably do something reckless. “Anevka—didn’t like to keep experiments around, so I replicated it imperfectly and convinced her to test it on Lady Vrin before doing anything else. It affected Vrin but didn’t control her, so Anevka had Miss Heterodyne put in a cell until the effect of her voice could be replicated fully.”

Gil… looked angry, but hadn’t made any moves toward attacking Tarvek. Huh. That was nice. Tarvek relaxed slightly, let his arms rest on his legs. Gil was still standing above Tarvek, frowning like he’d never get tired of it. It was irritating, but not worrying. “You said you tried to get her out.”

“I sent Tinka.” Which had been a mistake, although Tarvek still didn’t know what had gone wrong. She must have been able to leave the geisterdamen in their cell, or Tarvek would have found her in or just outside it; when he’d stumbled onto her she’d been almost to the exit he assumed she had intended to use. The geisterdamen must have escaped, but he couldn’t figure out how. The prison guards were specifically supposed to stay out of hearing of the geisterdamen’s cell. “She was supposed to show Miss Heterodyne the way out, but the geisterdamen caught up to them somehow, and took her back to the Beacon Engine. Lucrezia was already there by the time I caught up to them.”

Gil looked like he didn’t believe Tarvek. “I thought the muse you had was _Moxana_.”

Tarvek frowned. “I had Tinka first—I studied her to make Anevka’s puppet clank. She brought Moxana to me, so I thought she would be able to take Miss Heterodyne back to the circus.” 

Gil’s tone was openly scornful. “You’re telling me you _studied_ a Muse, and then she _brought you another_.”

Tarvek straightened as well as he could sitting on the cot, and glared back. “I only looked at her! I didn’t—my father took her apart, later, but I got her… mostly back together. _I didn’t hurt her_.” He’d scared her, when he took her away from the circus she’d been traveling with, and maybe no one would have taken her apart if he’d left her with it, but his sister had been dying and Tarvek _hadn’t hurt her_.

Gil stared at him, measuring, then sighed. “Okay. So then what?”

Then Tarvek had thought Agatha was gone, and tried to survive and work with Anevka, but Agatha had still been there, and he’d messed up balancing her and Lucrezia and Anevka, and gotten Anevka’s ghost replaced, and none of his plans to help Agatha had ended up working because she’d gone running to the _Baron_ anyway. He shrugged, frowning. “Then Lucrezia was there. She fixed the Beacon Engine so it would work better. I was trying to figure out how it worked so I could undo it, but—” it had been pointless.

“I see.” Gil just sighed, like he was disappointed with Tarvek. For what? Not being able to overpower and outwit the Other and all her priestesses? Tarvek would like to see _him_ try—

Except he probably would manage it, somehow, through sheer luck. Tarvek scowled. It wasn’t fair. Fair didn’t matter. (It still ached.)

Gil turned, and Tarvek glanced up. He was turning toward—

—the door was open, and the Baron was standing in it. How had Tarvek missed it opening? It hadn’t been in his view, but it wasn’t silent.

Gil straightened and went blank as a puppet. “Father.”

Tarvek could hear nothing in Gil’s voice, but he could guess. Guilt and fear, probably; he hadn’t been supposed to be here. (He’d never grown out of the habit of sneaking around where he wasn’t meant to be, it seemed.)

“Gilgamesh. I told you not to come here.” The Baron was frowning, like he was dealing with an unruly subject and not _his son_. That explained Gil’s reaction. Tarvek hadn’t had an affectionate family by any measure, but he knew what they looked like, and it wasn’t this.

“Yes Father.”

And Gil had always been desperate for family. Given the expectations of the Baron and an Empire at the same time as a place and family, he’d never question it, and just keep struggling to please people that never would be and live up to standards no one could.

“And yet you did anyway. I would like an explanation.”

Paris made so much more sense, now—it had been Gil’s last chance to not live under the Baron’s expectations, and he’d taken the freedom as far as he could. That was hardly rare; probably most of the young men Gil had spent time around in Paris had followed the same path; grown up with too many demands and no control of their lives, and when sent away, found they had no ability or inclination to control themselves around temptation. Gil was only unusual in that no one but Gil had known what he was escaping from.

Gil’s face was still blank. “I wanted to know what happened. You said Sturmvoraus was talking to everyone.”

And so Gil had come to Tarvek for information and nothing else. It was—likely, and Tarvek would have believed it five seconds ago, but he had to doubt anything Gil said in the Baron’s presence. Any answer couldn’t help but be crafted in that sort of relationship, even from Gil.

“And do you, now?”

But that was wrong. Gil shouldn’t have needed to ask Tarvek. The Baron not telling Gil anything was certainly believable, they’d both as well as said so, but….

“I know more.”

“Didn’t you ask Miss Heterodyne?” Tarvek asked.

Gil only turned to look at Tarvek after the Baron did. His expression was still mostly blank, but there was a hint of confusion. “No. I will.”

“Why not?” Wasn’t she speaking to him? Was she somewhere else? Had she been hurt somehow? Had she lost memories?

The Baron glared, but Gil answered. “She’s—she’s not out yet. She’s still possessed.”

No. She couldn’t—she shouldn’t be. Tarvek spun as he stood to face the Baron. “Why is she still possessed? I _told_ you how to fix it!”

The Baron took a step into the room, threatening. “Be silent, Sturmvoraus.”

“It shouldn’t have taken you _two weeks_ to fix her! What have you been _doing_?” Wasting time while Agatha suffered, obviously! Tarvek didn’t care, particularly, about the details of how he was wasting it.

The Baron moved fast—not so fast Tarvek couldn’t have avoided him, probably, but showing off would have done no good. He let himself be lifted by the front of his shirt and shoved against the wall, and couldn’t stop glaring. How dare _anyone_ leave Agatha trapped like that!

“I will not,” the Baron growled, “tolerate _insolence_ from a boy who _caused this problem_.”

“Then fix her!” Tarvek snapped. “We all know you can!”

“He’s fuguing,” Gil said. Tarvek blinked, checked—it seemed Gil was right. “And the way he was talking—I don’t think he’s very rational about her, Father.”

The Baron turned to look at Gil, then—chuckled, and set Tarvek down. “She does seem to have that effect, doesn’t she.”

Gil’s face was blank again, but he stared back at the Baron. “She does.”

Tarvek still wanted to—to knock the Baron out, and leave him in this _stupid, boring room_ , and go find Agatha and _fix her himself_ , since obviously no one else could be trusted to. But it wouldn’t work. Tarvek _might_ be able to knock out the Baron, with surprise and how close he was, but he might not; the Baron might be faking his apparent lack of attention to Tarvek. And even if he could, that would only lead to a fight with Gil, which would attract attention, and then Tarvek would be locked up again, probably under worse conditions, time would have been wasted, and Agatha wouldn’t be any better off at all. He bit his tongue, and stayed still.

The Baron ignored him, moving away from Tarvek and then toward the door. When he reached it, he gave Tarvek the same short glance over his shoulder that Gil received. The only difference was that Gil also received an order. “Come, Gilgamesh.”

“Yes Father.” Gil followed him out, facing straight ahead and expression blank, and the door closed behind them both.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zeetha takes Zulenna to meet the jägers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I... have no excuse for being late this time, honestly. This was pure writer's block. However! I did get a lot of planning done, which will help a lot with future chapters. I also have a (relatively) precise timeline now which I can post if anyone would like to see it, since chronology in this fic so far is a _mess_.
> 
> Warnings: None for this chapter! It is surprisingly humorous, actually.
> 
> [Dana](http://notapaladin.tumblr.com/post/130664184414/dana-vasilescu-jaeger-cavalry-seen-on-the-left) [Vasilescu](http://notapaladin.tumblr.com/post/131584171239/outtakes-that-didnt-make-it-into-the-latest) belongs to [lilithqueen](http://archiveofourown.org/users/lilithqueen/pseuds/lilithqueen), and Oggie's origin involving pigs is inspired by [adiduck](http://archiveofourown.org/users/book_people/pseuds/adiduck)'s fic [Hog Wild](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4726247) (with, obviously, at least the town's name changed), and the connection to/overlap with Zulenna's home is from brainstorming with lilithqueen.
> 
> "Jäger fighting practice room" and variants are basically "gym," but I don't think it's a word Zeetha would have encountered much with the circus, so she either doesn't know or can't come up with it for now. She'll probably know it by the next chapter of hers.
> 
> My greatest regret for this chapter is that I did not find an opportunity for Zeetha and Maxim to start competitively bragging about their sex lives. (Maxim would win for sheer numbers, but Zeetha would win for the last year or two. Maxim was a bit busy with the "not being killed by random jäger-hating townspeople" thing. He's probably still flirted with more people, though.)

It hadn’t been hard to find Dimo, or rather, to find Maxim; all Zeetha had to do was poke her head into the jägers’ beer hall, follow the directions she got there to one of the rooms dedicated to jägers practicing and sparring, and then look for red. Maxim was easy to spot, and Dimo and Oggie were with him; all three agree to meet Zulenna (Oggie was enthusiastic, Maxim asked why Zulenna was interested, and when Zeetha explained Dimo’s suspicious frown vanished).

Zulenna caught Zeetha’s eye that evening, with a significant glance at the door. Zeetha took the hint, and left the students’ living area a few minutes later to linger outside it. She had her swords, so she couldn’t lean against the wall, but she must have looked casual anyway; no one bothered her as they went past.

Zulenna emerged half an hour later, and glanced around the hall before striding over to Zeetha. Zeetha nodded, turned, and led the way toward the jägers’ fighting room.

“I do _hope_ we’re not going to a bar,” Zulenna said. There was still a hint of distaste in her voice, but it was slight enough that Zeetha decided she was probably already trying to hold it back. The jägers could deal with it in any case.

“The jägers have their own fighting rooms.”

“Which aren’t bars?” Zulenna clarified.

Zeetha smirked. “Bar fights _are_ pretty fun.” She caught Zulenna’s disgusted look and continued. Skifander hadn’t had bars, as such, though they’d certainly had plenty of ways to get drunk. Zeetha had been in plenty of bar fights anyway; someone or other from the circus tended to get involved in them in most towns, and Zeetha often volunteered to get them out. “You ever seen a man who thought you were weak realize you could beat him five times at once?”

Zulenna sniffed, chin in the air. “Most certainly _not_. I do not get into common fights.”

“You should.” Zulenna looked even more affronted. Zeetha hid her smirk this time; she didn’t want to offend Zulenna further when she was giving actual advice. “Practice follows rules that don’t exist in real fights. You know who your opponents are, you know what weapons they have and when they’ll stop and that they aren’t willing to hurt you for real. If you want to be prepared for a _real_ fight, bar fights are better practice.”

“I—” Zulenna started, then stopped and frowned in distaste. “There must be alternatives to _bars_ for that.”

Zeetha shrugged. “Sure—but I haven’t seen them on this ship.”

Zulenna pursed her lips, but said nothing.

She was still frowning when they reached the jägers’ fighting room. Zeetha ignored that in order to search for red again, and waved as she strode toward Maxim, Dimo and Oggie. “Hey guys!”

They turned, grinning, and Oggie waved back. She couldn’t tell if he was aware that his poleaxe was still in his hand and being waved around also, but Dimo and Maxim both managed to be standing conveniently where they weren’t hit. “Miz Zeetha! Bek already?”

“I said I would be, didn’t I?” Zeetha waited until they were within normal human conversational range before continuing. “This is Zulenna.”

“Princess of Holfung-Borzoi,” Zulenna interjected, voice haughty.

“Ho, yah? Dot sounds fameeliar,” Maxim said.

“Vosn’t dot de place vit de pigs?” Dimo asked as Zulenna started to turn red.

“Iz vhere Hy iz from!” Oggie puffed up, polishing the claws of one hand on the front of his jacket. “Ve hed de best pigs—”

“Ve schtole hyu pigs,” Dimo said. "Hy vos on dot raid."

“Vell, yah… bot ve gots new vuns.”

“And they are still the best,” Zulenna cut in, frowning like she couldn’t decide what to think of Oggie. He grinned at her, and she sniffed in distaste.

Zeetha waited until she was sure she wouldn’t start snickering to talk. “I brought her here because she wants to help Agatha, but the Baron won’t allow her to have any real weapons to practice with.”

Zulenna shot Zeetha an irritated look—what, did she think those easily snapped little things were real weapons? But the jägers focused on her, all joking sliding away as they visibly analyzed her.

“Vot hyu fight vit?” Maxim asked.

“I fence,” Zulenna said. She seemed more comfortable with the topic; her tone was the least haughty it had been since they reached the jägers. “Quite well, but the foils snapped when Princess Zeetha and I sparred.”

“ _Princez_?” Oggie echoed.

Zeetha shrugged. “Back home, yes. It hasn’t mattered much here.”

“Veapons?” Dimo repeated.

“I’ve been trained in the basics of using a crossbow, longsword and mace, but I only have access to them when I visit home.”

Maxim brightened. “Ho, swords! Ve ken do swords—” he turned away, and raised his voice to bellow over the rest of the jägers in the room, who had been glancing over frequently (or just staring), but not gotten any quieter for it. “Hoy! Dana!”

Zeetha had a few seconds to wonder about the name—hadn’t it been a girl’s name last time she met someone with it?—before a jäger ducked out of the crowd.

Huh. Zeetha hadn’t know there were girl jägers. This one obviously was both, though; dark gray skin, pink hair, all the normal jäger teeth and claws, and an outfit that left no doubt that she was a girl, and might just be fancier than her hat besides. Maybe there was some sort of jäger swordsmanship code that required jägers who used swords to dress much more nicely than the rest, and in red. Zeetha had seen stranger things in Europa….

Dana stopped, and grinned at Zeetha and Zulenna. “Vot, hyu gurls iz ektually talking to Maxim? He iz not de best here, I can tell hyu….”

“Miz Zeetha iz Miz Agatha’s friend,” Maxim said loudly. Dana stopped talking to give Zeetha a much more appraising look. Oggie kept snickering, and Maxim punched him in the arm as he continued. “Und Miz Zulenna iz alzo goink to fight for Miz Agatha, bot de Baron dun vant her to, zo Hy em goink to teach her swordfightink.”

“I ken teach hyu dot.”

“Hyu ken’t, becawze de Baron sez she ken’t haff a sword, zo she iz borrowink hyu sword,” Maxim said.

Dana grinned immediately. “Oh _ho_ , zo hyu vant mine _sword_.”

Zeetha snickered as Zulenna turned red.

Dimo rolled his eyes. “Hyu dun _haff_ a sword,” he told Dana.

Oggie looked confused. “Mebbe she does? Vould not be de only vun, Hy tink Elena….”

“Yah, Elena,” Maxim said. “Bot Hy know ekzaktly who haz swords und who does not, und Dana dun haff a sword, Hy haff seen lots ov times—”

“Vell, den,” Dana said, perfectly reasonable, “vhy iz hyu esking to borrow it?”

“Can we _please_ get back to the fighting?” Zulenna asked.

Four jägers gave her wide-eyed looks. “Bot swords iz part of fightink,” Maxim said.

“ _Not that kind_ ,” Zulenna hissed.

“Hokay, hokay.” Dana held her hands up. “Ve ken tok about fightink now.”

“ _Good_.”

“Miz Zeetha, iz hyu gun practice fightink too?” Dimo asked.

“I was planning to. I don’t _think_ the Baron will take my weapons away, but he knows how I fight and he’s probably better than me.” He was older, stronger, and had a longer reach; he’d been practicing longer than Zeetha had been alive, and since her mother had taught them both he’d know how Zeetha fought, while he might have (almost certainly had) incorporated Europan sword techniques that Zeetha hadn’t yet encountered. She needed to improve. “And I haven’t fought much of anything that could _think_ in the last few years.”

“How he know dot?” 

“My mother taught him too.” Zeetha wasn’t sure if her mother had _intended_ for it to be a courtship at first, but it certainly had been by the end. That wouldn’t have slowed her teaching down at all; if anything, it would have made her push him harder.

Dimo’s eyes had narrowed slightly, and he was starting to grin. Oggie and Maxim were grinning broadly; Dana’s eyebrows had shot up. “Zo he fights like hyu?” Dimo asked.

Zeetha frowned. “He _could_. I don’t know if he _does_.” But then, her mother had talked some about why she decided to teach him—she’d said he had a great fighting spirit, and he was good at making things with his gift that he could use in a fight, but not really good with weapons. “If he doesn’t, he should have learned whatever style he does use later, so there should be some basic similarities still.”

All four jägers were grinning. “Zo hyu ken fight os,” Dimo said, “und ve ken learn how to fight de Baron?”

Teach an army known for conquering and killing people how to counter Skifandran fighting styles, or teach an army loyal to Zeetha’s zumil, who she might (hoped not to, would probably) need as allies to save her zumil how to counter the fighting style of her zumil’s captor? The laws dictating who could teach and who could learn Skifandran warrior techniques didn’t explicitly cover this situation, but Zeetha thought if they did, they would forbid it.

She also thought she knew what her mother would have to say about it. “He probably doesn’t fight exactly like me, but yes.”

“ _Goot_ ,” Maxim said.

“I’d like learn as well, if that’s acceptable,” Zulenna said.

Zeetha nodded. “As soon as you can use a weapon that won’t break.”

“Of course.”

“Hokay!” Dimo was grinning, more cheerful than Zeetha had seen him since they got to Castle Wulfenbach. “Miz Zeetha, hyu ken fight Maxim, he is goot at learnink sword tings.”

“So am I!” Dana complained. “I ken learn sword tings too, I want to fight Miz Zeetha.”

“Und me!” Oggie said.

“Hyu haff neffer even _picked op_ a sword,” Maxim told Oggie.

“Hy deed, remember ven hyu dropped hyu sword fightink dose cricket clenks—”

“Hy deed not drop eet, Hy trew eet!”

“Vell, Hy hed to pick eet op for hyu ennyvay—”

“Hyu _threw_ hyu _sword_?” Dana asked, gleeful.

“Eet vos flyink avay!”

“Und hyu _threw_ hyu _sword_.”

“Eet vorked!”

A snort escaped Zulenna, and she covered her mouth with a hand like it could hide her amusement. Zeetha started giggling.

Dimo looked pained. “Dana ken fight Miz Zeetha next, und Oggie ken fight her vhile Maxim is teachink Miz Zulenna,” he said. He paused, then eyed Zeetha. “…If hyu ken keep fightink dot long?”

Zeetha snorted. “Of course I can.”

“Hokay. Den Hy vant to fight too, after Oggie.”

“Sure.”

Maxim grinned and bounced on his toes, like a little girl getting to pick her first training weapon. “Ve ken fight now, yah?”

Zeetha grinned, and reached back to retrieve her swords. “As long as _you’re_ ready.”

Maxim grinned, which might have been intimidating if Zeetha hadn’t had time to get used to all the fangs. Instead he just looked eager as he drew his sword. “Hy em _alvays_ ready.”

He didn’t attack immediately, which surprised Zeetha a little. He did soon, of course, but he watched her for a minute first. She stared back, analyzing him. Neither of them knew the other’s fighting style, but Zeetha had seen more of Europan swordsmanship than he should have seen of Skifandran techniques. He had more experience, was stronger, and had a slightly longer reach than she did, but he also only had one sword, and no shield or secondary weapon. That should leave them relatively even, at least for a quick, friendly spar. So Zeetha should try to deflect or catch his sword with one of hers and keep the other free to attack—

—which might have worked, if Zeetha hadn’t forgotten that an empty hand on a jäger was still a weapon. She succeeded in deflecting his sword and leaving him open after a few minutes, but instead of trying to disengage as she moved in he did too, and Zeetha froze when she found claws at her throat.

“Hy vin!” Maxim announced. “Dot vas fon, ve should do dis more.”

Zeetha snorted. That had been a stupid mistake; she’d need to learn not to do that anymore. It was unlikely she’d ever fight a jäger for real, but there were plenty of constructs with claws out there, and she’d bet anything that the Baron had some in his army. “Yeah, sure. After you teach Zulenna. Good fight, though.”

Maxim hadn’t ever stopped grinning, but he still managed to draw himself up and preen. “Yah, Hy em verra goot et de fightink.”

“I should _hope_ so,” Zulenna said. “That’s what you’re _for_.”

“Vell, yah.”

“Iz my turn!” Dana already had her sword out. “…Onless hyu need to rest, Miz Zeetha?”

Zeetha snorted. “Do _none_ of you remember how long you could fight while you were human?”

“Not verra well,” Dana said.

“Ve vos all special ennyvay,” Oggie added. “Iz vhy ve iz jägerkin now.”

“Und ve ken usually kill humans before dey get tired,” Dimo said.

Well, that was true enough. “If a human ever needs to rest _that_ quickly, it’s probably because they spent the last year laying in bed in the hospital,” Zeetha said. “Or were poisoned or something like that. So yes, I can fight now.”

“Oh, goot!”

Dana did not stop to analyze Zeetha first, possibly because she already had while Zeetha fought Maxim. Instead she attacked immediately.

That fight went better. Zeetha still lost—she was beginning to think she probably usually would, fighting jägers—but at least it took longer, and wasn’t because she made a stupid mistake. Dana lashed out with a foot to trip her, and Zeetha jumped over it, which didn’t leave her with enough time to avoid Dana’s second foot, and she landed hard on her back. It was reflexive to throw her arms out to the side, falling like that, so that she wouldn’t accidentally cut herself while landing, but that left Zeetha wide open, and Dana had her pinned down with Dana’s sword next to Zeetha’s throat before she could recover.

Zeetha let her head fall back against the ground, and sighed. “I’m not sure you _need_ to learn anything from me.”

“Nah, vould have been moch easier if I knew how hyu fight,” Dana said as she sat back. “Und fighting de Baron iz—iz like fightink a General, I hear, ve dun know how he iz like dot.”

Hm. That was bad news. “A jäger General?” Zeetha asked, just in case there were any other generals that the jägers would bother to pay attention to.

“Yah.”

Very bad news. Maybe Zeetha could spar with the jäger Generals sometime, and see if there was any point in trying to prepare for a fight with the Baron, or if she should focus on ways to avoid it and let the jägers deal with him. “Well, hopefully this will help you, anyway.”

“Vill help hyu too!” Dana stood up, sword still in hand as she grinned, and offered the other hand to Zeetha. “Hyu deed better fightink me already.”

Zeetha snorted, and accepted the hand up. “I didn’t do anything _stupid_ fighting you.”

“Dot’s better!”

Maybe so, but not _enough_. At least Zeetha knew how to keep improving at this; she couldn’t help with gifted things, but she could be ready to fight when Agatha needed it. “Well, let’s keep practicing, then.”

“And I should start,” Zulenna added, looking pointedly at Maxim.

“Yah, hokay. Dana, let her haff hyu sword.”

Dana handed it over hilt first, but with a warning look. “Hokay, but eet hed better be in de _same condeeshon_ ven I get eet beck.”

“I know how to take care of swords,” Zulenna said.

Dana paused, and grinned. “I am going to be verra nize und not say ennyting about dot.”

“Zo Dana’s sword is ektually a cavalry saber, vhich is not _ekzaktly_ like a longsword, bot eet vill be goot for hyu to be able to use more den vun type ov sword ennyvay,” Maxim said. “Zo ve vill get hyu a longsword later, und mebbe sumting elze efter dot.”

“I can’t keep any weapons in the student dorm,” Zulenna said.

Maxim waved that off. “Ve keep eet for hyu, den, und ve haff hyu meet efferyvun so ven hyu need eet, ve get eet to hyu. Ve ken be verra fast vit dot.”

Zulenna frowned, and nodded. Zeetha suspected she only agreed because she had no other options. “Very well. So, for now?”

“Hold eet op—hyu grip iz almost right, bot dis finger….”

Oggie sidled up next to Zeetha, and she turned away from Zulenna, Maxim and Dana. Oggie grinned brightly at her. “Ve ken fight now?”

Zulenna was still less than two meters away. “Let’s give them more space, then yes,” Zeetha said.

“Hokay!” Oggie grabbed her arm, startling Zeetha into a laugh, and she let him tow her over to a clearer spot a little further away. Dimo trailed after them, not quite grinning yet. Two other jägers that Zeetha didn’t know broke off their fight and stopped to watch as well.

Good. Zeetha knew what she had to do, and she had Zulenna and all of the jägers to help her. They would make it work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Personally I'm thinking that Zeetha won her fight with Dimo, although largely because he was trying to avoid hurting her and therefore kept throwing knives to the side to try and herd her around rather than actually aiming at her. Unfortunately the chapter wound down before I could include that, but you can assume it happened.
> 
> Also, I don't think Zeetha has quite made the connection that openly carrying around a pair of quite large and sharp swords is not something most people do on Castle Wulfenbach, and therefore comes off as intimidating regardless of how casual she is otherwise (to the humans, at least). Or she might have realized and then forgotten again, since this is totally normal in Skifander and no one was bothered by it while she was with the Circus, so she isn't expecting it to come up now.
> 
> *edit* Also! Regarding the conversation that starts with Dana's "you want my SWORD," the intended messages were 1: transgender jägers are a thing, 2: the jägers do not give a shit (and neither does Zeetha), 3: but Maxim will take any opportunity he can to try to brag about his sex life. (And if you want, 4: the other jägers are used to Maxim and therefore ignore him when he tries this and 5: Zulenna does not want to hear about anyone's sex life thank you very much.) I... was feeling confident about that, but now I am second guessing whether it actually comes off as intended or if there were better ways to phrase it. So if anyone can let me know if that worked or not, and if not what didn't work and/or how it could be improved, I will send you cookies. Possibly even real ones if you want, I've been planning to make some soon anyway.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Klaus still cannot communicate with his son. Zulenna's parents are much better at it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is... _technically_ on time? At least in my time zone it is. Compared to the last ones I'm going to call it close enough.
> 
> Warnings: none for this chapter, I think.

The latest report from Tiktoffen was, at least, more informative than the previous.

The previous had arrived a week and a half earlier, half a week before it was due, and read as if Tiktoffen had simply had a prisoner record as he ranted through a fugue. That wasn’t what had actually happened—messy though it was, the handwriting was recognizably Tiktoffen’s—but it was no more coherent for that. Tiktoffen spent three pages ranting about Heterodyne girls, Muses, Castle Heterodyne dying and (primarily) what a horrible tragedy and betrayal Castle Heterodyne’s death was and how Klaus had better Do Something About It, And Soon. (Klaus did: he sent extra guards to make sure that none of the prisoners escaped while he figured out what on Earth was going on.)

That was difficult, as Klaus still didn’t want to send anyone he actually trusted into the Castle. Until he had information otherwise, he had to assume that he would most likely lose them if he did. He sent additional spies into Mechanicsburg, of course, but neither they nor the ones he already had could discover much.

A particularly pink and showy “Heterodyne girl” had arrived one day, and entered the Castle with a number of guards, or perhaps minions. Her pink airship (at the time; it turned out to be a new type that could change its color, and had been paid for by Strinbeck) had waited overhead as she disappeared. Before dawn the next morning, a loud and inhuman scream had been heard throughout the town, and much of its mechanisms ceased to function, such as the fountains and streetlights. The Mechanicsburg citizens began carrying lamps at night and hauling water from wells, and seemed for all the world to be not merely evasive, but genuinely baffled (and, though well-hidden, afraid) in their grumbling. No further information could be found.

Tiktoffen’s new report provided a few answers at last. The pink “Heterodyne girl” was called Zola, and a niece of Lucrezia’s chosen to take the role of a Heterodyne girl for a new Storm King. She had entered with her entourage (which was mostly killed before she got all the way in), and the few parts that had not been previously smuggled in to complete a device which—as Tiktoffen claimed—killed Castle Heterodyne. She had earned the loyalty of the prisoners, and promised them gold and freedom if they finished repairing the Castle—a much easier task now that it was properly inanimate and not so likely to kill its repairmen. (Some dangers remained, but not nearly so many as there had been previously.)

And then a clank had appeared, which Tiktoffen insisted was “clearly a Muse, perhaps a lost one or prototype that never made it into the legends,” and claimed to be Castle Heterodyne. It backed up its claim with violence, killing several prisoners, and proceeded to round the rest up and follow them tirelessly, insisting they remain in a single group so it could watch them as it directed repairs, and attacked any prisoner who wandered too far. Zola had been able to conceal her responsibility for the Castle’s death, or perhaps the Muse simply didn’t care, and she was kept with the other prisoners and treated the same as them. (Tiktoffen was also treated identically, which seemed to offend him a great deal.) It had smashed the device that killed the Castle to the smallest pieces it could, however.

Martellus von Blitzengaard appeared a week later, apparently lacking most information and accompanied by several supporters in mechanical, white and silver Knight death suits. The Knight suits had been destroyed by the Wulfenbach military in Mechanicsburg when they refused to remain outside the town, and the survivors had provided a great deal of enlightening information on the Storm King conspiracy’s second major faction. Von Blitzengaard had escaped the roundup, gotten into the city, and announced in dramatic fashion that the Castle was endangering the Heterodyne girl in its madness (or else she would have emerged already), and that he would go in, rescue her, and fix the Castle himself as the Storm King, before vanishing into Castle Heterodyne.

The Muse located him a day later, and after a fight which von Blitzengaard lost badly, put him in with the other prisoners. Von Blitzengaard, of course, had been rather upset about that; the rest of the prisoners were relieved. Many of the repairs that the Muse demanded required a stronger spark than had been previously in Castle Heterodyne (Klaus had avoided sending any too-powerful sparks there, in case they found the materials to build something which would allow them to escape), and the Muse had taken to killing prisoners in its frustration when they failed. Von Blitzengaard was able to make most of the repairs that the Muse wanted, at least in the day and a half between his inclusion and Tiktoffen sending the report, and so the Muse had stopped killing prisoners.

The knock on the door startled Klaus out of his contemplation of the… not even a problem, the catastrophic mess that was Mechanicsburg and Castle Heterodyne. He couldn’t remember any scheduled appointments, but this wasn’t an especially secret or time-sensitive report. “Come in.”

He didn’t bother to look up as he retrieved paper to write his response on. Whoever it was entered, and then stood before the desk quietly. It wasn’t Boris, then; he would have started pointedly shuffling papers or clearing his throat after the first thirty seconds, to make it clear that he had things to do and waiting for Klaus was not among them. Probably a captain of one of the military units or head of one of the departments that maintained Castle Wulfenbach, then; every week or so one or another would appear, asking for either a raise in pay or increased funding for whatever it was they ran. Well, they could wait until Klaus finished, or else they found the courage to interrupt him. It wasn’t like he’d _do_ anything to them for it, or ever had done worse to anyone than snap and glower.

For Mechanicsburg—the townspeople would grumble about Wulfenbach mechanics and engineers fixing their town’s machinery, so supply the equipment, hire Mechanicsburg natives to do the analysis and repairs of the broken mechanisms, and make sure a few spies got into the work teams, just in case anything interesting was discovered. That was simple enough.

Castle Heterodyne, the Muse, and the prisoners were a more difficult dilemma. Though the Muse was apparently doing what Klaus had intended anyway, keeping the prisoners contained in the Castle and working on repairs to it. Klaus doubted that it could be as reliable as the Castle itself, but perhaps an increase in guards around the Castle would be sufficient to contain any prisoners that escaped the Muse. It seemed likely that the Muse would not allow prisoners out when they had completed their sentences, but they weren’t meant to ever complete them anyway. Klaus should find something else to do with prisoners that would have been sent to Castle Heterodyne in the future, but the ones that were already there could remain….

“Father.”

“Gilgamesh?” Klaus looked up, and yes, that was Gilgamesh standing there, stiff like he could convince spies he was just a random employee of Castle Wulfenbach and not its heir if he looked uncomfortable enough. Klaus doubted it would do any good, but it wouldn’t do any particular harm, so he ignored it. “You should have said something. What is it?”

“I—” Gilgamesh stopped, frowned, then continued, speaking quickly. “I wanted to know why the prisoners aren’t allowed baths.”

Klaus blinked. “I see no reason for you to be concerned by _that_.”

Gilgamesh folded his arms, expression stubborn. Oh dear, this was going to be one of those conversations. Klaus looked forward to when Gilgamesh became more realistic about things. “I noticed that Sturmvoraus looked like he hadn’t had a bath in a week and that’s not like him at all, so I talked to Herr Kardos, and she said none of the prisoners have access to bathing at all.”

Klaus ran a hand over his face. Of all the things—even locked up Sturmvoraus _still_ managed to cause him trouble. “Baths are a luxury—”

“They’re not, they’re—they’re basic decency! _You_ wouldn’t go without one, you wouldn’t even _allow_ me to—”

“I certainly _hope_ that you would know better than to attempt not to bathe for a week,” Klaus said. “As for the prisoners, the rain engines are costly to build and take up space, and water is heavy to carry, costs money to clean and filter, and also takes up space. Nevermind the _soap and towels_. Prisoners are not worth the investment, and allowing them out of their cells to bathe would only provide opportunities to escape.”

Gilgamesh unfolded his arms, only to begin gesturing as if he were starting a rant. “So build something else that’s more efficient, or cheaper, or portable, or whatever! You have half the sparks on the continent on the Castle, you can just have one of them invent something!”

Klaus sighed. He certainly could put that problem to his employed sparks, but he’d get back rain engines that poured out pickles and acid, or hypnotized anyone who used them into dancing for a week, or some other such nonsense.

On the other hand… perhaps he could use this. Klaus retrieved a fresh sheet of note paper, and wrote a brief list; maximums of cost, water usage, and space requirements, then handed it to Gilgamesh. He blinked, eyebrows pulling together as he began reading. “Very well then. Those are your requirements. If you wish the prisoners to have baths, _you_ may invent one for them.” It would, at least, serve to keep Gilgamesh busy for a time, even if nothing else came of it. The more time he spent on things that were not searching for Lucrezia’s daughter, the better. Punch and Judy would be fully revived and no longer in need of a spark’s care in a month and a half; best to give Gilgamesh another task before they had finished healing. (And Klaus still needed to decide what to do with them—yet another headache.) “And do not come to me about this until your invention meets _all_ the requirements. I do not have time for a machine that only does half of what it is supposed to.” Gilgamesh had certainly encountered the strategy some of Klaus’s employees used of presenting an invention that consumed far too much of something or other, or cost too much to make, and insisting that further improvement was impossible and Klaus should use it as it was. He had no desire to listen to any extra of _that_.

Gilgamesh looked back up from the paper and nodded sharply, crumpling it in a fist as his hands dropped to his sides. Oh well; it wasn’t like anyone but him would be seeing that particular piece of paper. “Yes Father.”

“Was there anything else you wanted?”

“No. I’ll go….” Gilgamesh gestured vaguely with the hand holding the paper. “Work on this.”

“Very well. Good luck,” Klaus said, and Gilgamesh left.

~---~---~---~---~

Zulenna’s father’s office was difficult to keep warm, even in early fall. There were large fireplaces in two walls with roaring fires; despite that, the stone of the walls sucked away heat and kept the room cool enough that Zulenna was glad to still have her coat on.

But two feet of stone on every side made the room impervious to almost anything, including eavesdroppers, so long as Zulenna’s mother took the chair that let her see the door and be sure it wasn’t cracked. Her father could also see the door from where he sat at his desk through a set of well-placed mirrors, but with her mother in place he ignored them. “You had news, Zulenna?”

She sat comfortably—her chair didn’t allow her to watch the door, but at home that didn’t bother her. “Yes. What do you know of the events at Sturmhalten?”

Her mother folded her hands in her lap. “That the Prince is dead, his children missing, and the Baron has appointed a governor to run the city. That is all that is certain. Rumors include: that the Other attacked and the Baron defended Sturmhalten. That the Prince was the Other, the Baron learned of it and the Prince’s children are in hiding, either to save themselves or to continue his work. That the Baron was the Other, attacked Sturmhalten, and the Heterodynes returned to fight him. That the Heterodynes returned to help the Baron save Sturmhalten from the Other, who may or may not have been the Prince. That a single Heterodyne girl emerged from hiding to defend Sturmhalten from the Baron, the Other, or both. That Lucrezia Mongfish returned without the Heterodynes to save Sturmhalten.” She spread her hands in front of her and shrugged. “And so on. There was a battle, but no one knows who the Baron was fighting. The Other and the Heterodynes are involved, but no one is certain how.”

“Do you know?” Zulenna’s father asked.

She set the glass of wine she’d been holding on a nearby table. “I know some. The Other was Lucrezia Mongfish.”

Her mother frowned. “Lucrezia Mongfish was kidnapped by the Other,” she said. It wasn’t a correction; it was a repetition of what she knew, to be dealt with.

Zulenna, unfortunately, couldn’t deal with it very well. “She faked it, probably. That much wasn’t clear. But she had a daughter—a Heterodyne—who was in Sturmhalten. Prince Aaronev was a follower of the Other, and when he found her daughter, he had her kidnapped and Lucrezia possessed her.” She shrugged. “Spark things.”

Her parents nodded; her father was frowning, and her mother’s lips were pressed together. Spark things were well known to them; useful to them, useful to their enemies, and never quite explicable, so never something that could be quite planned for.

Neither asked a question, so Zulenna continued. “The Heterodyne fought off the possession well enough to find the Baron and request his help in removing it. She’s been a prisoner of his since then. He won’t allow anyone to see her and will only say that he is still working on the problem.”

“And you doubt his good faith,” her mother said.

“I do.” Zulenna took a deliberate breath. This was dangerous information, and Zulenna didn’t have proof, but she had the next best thing. “So does his daughter.”

“Another secret child?” Zulenna’s father asked.

“One who sides against her father,” her mother added, frowning.

“She was raised by her mother, who is Queen of some sort of lost city. She calls herself a War Princess and carries a pair of swords everywhere she goes. She’s quite skilled with them.” And she dressed indecently, but that wasn’t necessary to spread. It was likely from her home culture, and Zulenna could explain proper dress to her should she ever attend a formal function outside of the school. “She swore something that requires her to protect the Heterodyne, and is friends with jägers. She says she intends to rescue the Heterodyne if the Baron doesn’t free her. I have offered to help.”

Her mother breathed in sharply, but said nothing. Her father frowned. “That will be dangerous.”

“I know.” Better than anyone else, and Zulenna’s parents shouldn’t have forgotten that. Officially announcing her disqualification from inheritance was her excuse to be home for this conversation.

Her father nodded sharply. “Then I am proud of you for it. Is there anything you could use?”

Zulenna would need a weapon, if it came to that, but the jägers had promised to provide a sword. “Nothing which I could take back without it being found. But if this does go that far, the Baron will not stop once she escapes.”

Her mother nodded in agreement. Her father closed his eyes and sighed. “No, he wouldn’t. But our alliance is clear in this.” He opened his eyes and met Zulenna’s. “You may tell Princess Zeetha that Holfung-Borzoi will stand with the Heterodynes.”

“And I will begin contacting others that might be allies,” her mother added. “We will all need to be prepared.”

Zulenna relaxed. She’d known that her parents would choose the Heterodyne side, of course, but confirmation was reassuring. Better, they did not seem terribly worried or resigned as they would have if they had believed they had no chance in a war.

The conversation went on, determining code phrases to convey allies who would start the war with them, allies that would join once a war began and the Baron failed to crush the Heterodyne, likely allies, and likely enemies. Zulenna had less to contribute after that as the discussion shifted to resources; military training and supplies, strategic arrangement and how to collect more without the Baron noticing. Being on Castle Wulfenbach gave her insight into the minds of most of the region’s heirs and their families, but much less information on the current distribution of military supplies within the Empire.

They left for dinner an hour later. It was private as well, with only Zulenna’s younger siblings joining them, but not in a secure room, so the conversation was instead about the details of Zulenna’s announcement. Her siblings and parents tried to be cheerful, but it was a painful conversation nonetheless.

It did, at least, help that Zulenna had a purpose still. Dying would not prevent her from fulfilling her family’s duty to the Heterodynes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Gil becomes interested in prison reform" is _not_ where I was expecting this fic to go when I started it, but _okay_.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Wulfenbach family continues to be a disaster. Expanding that beyond blood relations improves nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...Not too much to say on this, except thanks to [Han502653](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Han502653/pseuds/Han502653) for checking this chapter's characterization (and for that matter, the last one), freeing it of typos, and semi-voluntarily becoming my source of expertise on all things Zeetha. Thank you!
> 
> Warnings for this chapter: Zeetha's depression is coming through a little more strongly now.
> 
> *edit* So! I managed to completely forget that Gil fixed Lilith's eye and Adam's... voice box? Throat? Whatever was preventing him from speaking. So the first section of this chapter has been edited to correct that. The actual events aren't changed, just a little bit of Adam's reasoning, so if you've already read and don't want to again you shouldn't be missing anything.

Castle Wulfenbach was emptier than Adam had expected.

He and Lilith had encountered very few people during their first foray into it to rescue Agatha, but there had been a lab accident and an evacuation; Adam had assumed that that was why they’d found no one. But now, following the directions of a man who introduced himself as Airman Higgs with a Mechanicsburg accent before immediately dropping it again, the halls seemed to be even emptier. It had been twelve minutes since they left the lab and they’d only had to dodge into shadows to hide twice.

That was deliberate, Adam was sure; Higgs had been very insistent that he and Lilith get up and get moving _immediately_. They weren’t quite recovered yet—the main healing was done, but it would have been nice to have a few more days under spark machines to restore strength and reduce the aches and internal scar tissue. But they could move, a little awkwardly, a little tired, but not restrained. They would recover perfectly well, it would only take a little longer, and would barely hinder them now.

It felt wrong to leave Castle Wulfenbach while Agatha was still there. Klaus’s son had talked about her often, rambling more than anything as he worked on their revivification and restoration or on other projects ranging from a lightning generator to constructs to holograms, and it had been quite informative, except that a large part of that information was that the boy simply didn’t _know_. Klaus had taken Agatha and locked her up at her request, and refused to tell anyone anything more, except that he was working on the problem.

The boy was troubled by that, and by someone else’s suggestion—Adam knew of the Sturmvoraus family, but not which one Gil had spoken to—that Agatha should be fixed and freed already. But he was unable to disbelieve his father, and he agonized over the dilemma. The Baron was a brilliant spark and ruling the empire with everyone’s best interests as his ultimate goal, Sturmvoraus had to be wrong, he had to have missed something, the Baron couldn’t be wrong. He’d never been wrong, he couldn’t be wrong. Adam would have been more sympathetic to the dilemma if Agatha hadn’t been the focus of it. (She always seemed to be; he and Lilith had agonized the same way over Barry and the locket for years, and been as useful in the end.)

It seemed that the jägers were feeling equally trapped, for different reasons. Higgs had explained as he helped them detach themselves from the various machines they’d been in and break the alarms that went off as a result that Agatha had given very clear and specific orders that no jäger was to ever do anything that involved getting her away from Klaus, in case Lucrezia was pretending to be Agatha. Those orders could be changed, but Klaus wasn’t allowing any of the jägers to know where she was, and most of them were afraid of mistaking Lucrezia for Agatha and obeying the wrong person. So they had spent the last two months hunting down and exterminating geisterdamen, something clear and simple, and most left it for someone else to do the thinking and figure out if Agatha needed to be rescued.

The few that did were mostly jägers that had previously been detached, along with a few human allies. (Higgs hadn’t specified who those were, and Lilith didn’t press. Adam almost did, just for the novelty of being able to, but time was limited.) They were also afraid of accidentally rescuing Lucrezia, but believed that when Agatha _was_ free—however it happened—she would need to fight to stay that way. They wanted allies on the ground, that could get to and inform Mechanicsburg to prepare.

So Higgs came to the Baron’s son’s secret lab, helped them out of the machines, gave them directions for a circuitous route to a mostly-unattended hangar of small flyers, and vanished down a different hallway as they left.

Adam walked in front, since his vision was better; Lilith’s large eye had always tended to blur what she saw as well as stand out, and she hadn't quite adjusted to its improvement; she said it was disorienting. In such empty hallways they were more likely to hear anyone coming before they saw him, but there was always the chance that there would be a guard who had been standing extraordinarily still.

There wasn’t. The hallways were eerily empty; half-lit and echoing, and the few people who moved through them were single-minded, walking quickly and not looking around. Stepping into an empty room was more than enough to avoid being seen by them. It _was_ hard to move quietly, but they were used to managing in much more difficult situations. Klaus’s halls were, out here, only bare of fabric and empty of other sounds; they weren’t, for example, trapped with siren alarms under half the stones.

The hangar was equally bare, and only saved from being empty by the crowd of flyers that covered its floor. There were guards there, however; six of them stationed around the room. But they weren’t hard to deal with; the ships blocked their view of each other. Adam crept one way and Lilith the other, and they each knocked out three guards on the way to meet by the hangar door.

Opening the door took longer. They had to find and decipher the controls, since forcing them open would have been dangerous both in terms of setting off alarms, and of simply falling out. But the controls weren’t complex, so within ten minutes they were hauling a flyer up to the doors. Lilith climbed in to start it while Adam held on in case it needed a push, or a guard woke up, or anything else went wrong.

Nothing did. The engine started fine, the flyer took off, Adam clambered into the seat and they flew off into a dark sky. No alarms sounded behind them, and no ships reacted as far as Adam could tell. They dropped down from the cluster of ships that surrounded Castle Wulfenbach, and turned East to sail for Mechanicsburg.

~---~---~---~---~

Gil’s newest friend (construct, experiment, plan) was growing well.

This one was a mix of, among other things, an octopus and a scorpion, to give it flexibility and the support of an exoskeleton. It was only halfway done growing, but if everything worked as Gil intended once it was fully grown the construct should be able to change the coloring of the skin that covered its skeleton, grasp objects with the suction cups on the insides of its legs and tail, talk (more precisely than Zoing, as he’d used a parrot’s throat as a base), and dislocate most of its joints (and take apart the sections of shell that made up the exoskeleton on its body) like a snake’s jaws in order to go through small openings. And produce a rather powerful paralytic venom, which Gil _really_ hoped it would prefer not to use on him. He’d already worked out an antidote, but the sting by itself would be painful, and he couldn’t quite remember if he’d given it barbs….

It was a very ambitious project, as constructs went; most sparks stuck to combining only two animals or altering one, and their changes were usually not as interwoven as Gil needed. He might have done best to make other constructs first, as practice, but he’d had _ideas_ , and it felt… wrong, to make a construct just as a test. What would he do with it after? He’d have to make up some use for it, or he’d just be telling it to get out of the way so he could make the construct he _really_ wanted. It felt odd to make constructs anyway, to create a life and mind just for his own purposes, but to make one without even _having_ a purpose seemed much worse.

And he’d done well enough with Zoing, at least in that Zoing seemed to be quite happy to exist, and had been enthusiastic about having more friends. He’d made Zoing when he was eight with no practice; he should be able to make a more complicated construct now, even if he hadn’t made any since.

Anyway, everything seemed to be going well so far. The tank the construct was growing in would require near-constant monitoring (Gil really needed to get a new lab assistant, but the only one he’d found time to try so far he hadn’t liked, and had sent away after less than a week), and probably some rebalancing of nutrients as it grew, but so far nothing had gone wrong that he hadn’t been able to fix.

“Where are they?”

“Wha—damn—Father!” The vial Gil had been toying with while watching the tank wasn’t acid or poison or anything like that—it was actually just saline—but he still would have _very much preferred_ not to drop it in front of the Baron. Not exclusively but partly because that meant he had to scramble to clean it up while the Baron watched, frowning in irritation and disappointment. He tossed the rag he’d grabbed aside as soon as he finished. “Where are who?”

…That had been his vest, hadn’t it. No wonder the Baron looked disappointed. Well, it _was_ just saline, it wasn’t like it was ruined or anything.

Instead of answering the Baron glanced around the lab. “Haven’t you found a new assistant yet?”

“I tried one, but I didn’t like him.” Gil was _almost_ certain that was an acceptable reason. He’d found the man on his own; his father probably hadn’t intended for him to have any particular assistant.

The Baron eyed the vest pointedly, and then the mess of lights and wires Gil had left on a table a week ago after getting frustrated with his attempts at building a hologram. Agatha had made one while possessed in Sturmhalten, he ought to be able to figure out a smaller and simpler version of the same thing with three labs and no interference. His father eyed Gil last, and as far as Gil could tell with the most disappointment. “I believe you would benefit from finding one soon. Now where are they?”

“Where are who?” Gil wasn’t especially in contact with… anyone. He had as much contact with the random airman that kept finding him when he was tired or had been fugueing especially long and bringing him food as he did with anyone else. Possibly more. Unless the Baron meant Zoing….

“Punch and Judy. You were reviving them in your secret lab and now they’re gone. Where are they?”

If Gil had been holding another vial, he would have broken it as well. “You—” Of course he knew. _How_ he knew was a better question, but if he wanted Gil to know he would have said. Since he’d apparently just snuck in here without Gil noticing, there were probably any number of options.

Gil had the sudden urge to _build_ , to install traps and sensors and barricades until _no one_ , most especially not the Baron, could get into any of his labs without him letting them. He didn’t want to think about that urge. (But he was already building a spy.) He ought to answer anyway. “I—they’re still there. They should be finished recovering in three or four days….”

The Baron folded his arms and frowned. “I was just there. They’re not.”

“—they’re not?”

“No.” The Baron was still frowning, watching Gil like he did during a test. Gil couldn’t guess what he was being tested on now. “Your healing machines are empty and no one is there.”

“I—” Gil shook his head. “I was there—six hours ago, they seemed—nothing seemed odd.”

The Baron sighed, and unfolded his arms as he turned away. “I suppose I should have expected them to escape again. Next time you revive someone, Gilgamesh, inform me so that I can place _proper_ security on them. You’re lucky they decided to escape when you weren’t there.”

“Yes father,” Gil said automatically, and unable to think of anything else.

The door closed behind the Baron with a click that Gil definitely heard.

…Urgh. Gil didn’t even know _why_ he felt disturbed now. The Baron hadn’t yelled at him or anything.

Well, there wasn’t anything he could do about it; he might as well get back to work. The construct was doing fine, he should work on something else. Maybe if he connected lights to sensors so that the current ones would turn on whenever anyone came within two meters of the door, and would turn off only at Gil’s command, and he could install lights of a different color that would respond to his presence…. He’d have to adjust his standards of the exact color everything should be, no, there had to be a better way to know when someone was approaching his lab that wouldn’t lead to him misidentifying chemicals….

~---~---~---~---~

The jägers were fun, but they were also exhausting. They weren’t so different from Skifandrans, overall—the tendency to high volumes, casual fights for fun, and enthusiasm in everything was definitely the same. (Whether it was a relief or pain enough to make Zeetha dizzy depended mostly on the moment.) But Skifandrans were human; the jägers were definitely not, and they took all of it to extremes that Skifandrans—Zeetha included—just couldn’t maintain for long.

It wasn’t an issue when they were training. Then everyone was focused; Zeetha had no problems with that. But she’d been spending most of the rest of her time with the jägers in the last two months, and that could be exhausting. They reminded her of home, and they wanted to hear about Agatha and talk about previous Heterodynes, which Zeetha sometimes needed as desperately as they did and sometimes couldn’t stand for five seconds without wanting to burst into tears. (They wanted to flirt and fuck and fight, too, but _those_ weren’t a problem for Zeetha.)

Zeetha wasn’t at the point where she wanted to cry yet, but she didn’t want to get there, and she was in the unhappy, angry mood that meant it would come easily, and hanging around jägers wasn’t a good idea. The school wasn’t either—it was getting more comfortable, and it was becoming reassuring to have Zulenna especially at her side, but they usually wanted to ask questions about Skifander, and a lot of the students still were just a little bit too on edge to talk to Zeetha normally. (They’d run out of questions about Agatha, or Zeetha thought they’d still be asking those too.) Most likely she’d either have to answer questions about home, have to explain why she didn’t want to, or end up sitting alone and trying not to get trapped in her own thoughts again.

None of those sounded appealing, so as soon as lunch finished and the older students started settling the younger ones down to study, she slipped out of the school and went in the opposite direction of the jägers’ section of Castle Wulfenbach.

Zeetha didn’t have anywhere in mind to go, and she’d gotten used to the way people’s eyes skimmed over her, then jumped back to her swords before the people shied a touch away. So she wandered the hallways aimlessly for most of an hour, until she recognized the sounds of a bar (but not a jäger bar) and ducked in.

There were probably three men for every woman in the bar, and three women for every man who was polite enough not to stare. They were mostly wearing the same uniforms, which Zeetha recognized as being from the various airship crews halfway to the bar.

The available drinks were all harsh, as far as Zeetha could tell. That was slightly annoying, but not enough to stop her from drinking them anyway, and claiming a small table near the bar which stayed empty.

That was fine. Zeetha closed her eyes, and listened to the conversations around her without focusing on any particular one. Surprisingly few were about her; she only caught a few quick speculations. Most were talking about their jobs; weather conditions in various parts of the Empire, missions they’d gone on or were about to, stories of old adventures that Zeetha would have bet she could pick out the exaggerations in as well as the teller. Better, in the case of the young man repeating in an awestruck voice a tale he’d heard about his captain.

“Mind if I take up a chair?”

The man standing by the table when Zeetha opened her eyes didn’t stand out at all. He was wearing the same airshipman uniform, short blond hair that came down the sides of his face, a few small, old-looking scars on his hands and bare forearms. “Go ahead.”

He sat without taking his eyes off her, and waited until he’d settled firmly in the chair before saying, “Rumors going around recently say the Baron’s got a daughter with green hair.”

Zeetha raised an eyebrow at him from behind her glass, and made no hurry to set it down and answer. “If you’re asking if that’s me, the answer is yes.”

“Huh.” The way he looked at her was surprisingly neutral; evaluating, but curious instead of hostile. “Wouldn’t’ve expected him to let you come here.”

Zeetha snorted. “I’m not asking him for _permission_ for anything.”

His eyebrows rose. “I see.”

He must have been smart, because he didn’t say anything else about the Baron, or Zeetha’s relationship to him. Instead he asked her opinion on the beer. Zeetha hadn’t drunk any of that yet, but he offered to buy her some to try, which was a more than convincing argument for Zeetha to give him her opinion of it afterwards.

None of the drinks she tried were great, but the company could definitely have been worse. He wasn’t so engaging that Zeetha felt any need to seek him out again, but she wouldn’t mind if he found her. She’d have to remember where this bar was; it seemed like it was going to become a place she went often.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oh, no, jägers. ...Klaus _NO._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This... is a week late, ugh. It was uncooperative and also school has taken way more time than anticipated, but I really do not have a good excuse. Sorry about that.
> 
> *edit* And I somehow _completely_ forgot to link to all the borrowed jagers, despite spending most of the last week thinking about the best way to do exactly that, because of course. So! [Tahir](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4676600/chapters/11947034) ([profile](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4676600/chapters/12011681)), [Zbignev](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4676600/chapters/11476300) ([profile](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4676600/chapters/12011681)), and [Radovana](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4676600/chapters/10892501) [Nikolayev](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4676600/chapters/12011681) all belong to [Adiduck](http://archiveofourown.org/users/book_people/pseuds/adiduck), who (continues to) very kindly correct their characterization for me. [Dana](http://notapaladin.tumblr.com/post/130664184414/dana-vasilescu-jaeger-cavalry-seen-on-the-left) [Vasilescu](http://notapaladin.tumblr.com/post/131584171239/outtakes-that-didnt-make-it-into-the-latest) belongs to [lilithqueen](http://archiveofourown.org/users/lilithqueen/pseuds/lilithqueen), who is also incredibly patient when I show up with approximately 200 variants on the same question about her jager.
> 
>  **Warnings** : Let's see... discussion of basically every jäger having some degree of PTSD and/or depression (specifically, various symptoms), and Klaus decides that gaslighting and medical rape are good ideas. (...Wikipedia is telling me medical rape isn't a term now, but I am pretty sure it is, so for clarity I am talking about A: secretly cloning people, and B: using a mindless body as a surrogate for said cloning, both of which he _definitely_ does not have anyone's consent to be doing.)
> 
> ...Yeah. This is not a happy chapter.

All four generals were sitting along a table, while Toma, Radovana and Zbignev stood on the other side. The table was pretty basic (and breakable-looking), but that did nothing at all to make them less intimidating. Four Generals and no explanation of why you’d been called in didn’t leave much room for anything to make the situation less intimidating.

Generals Goomblast and Gargantua were in the center, with Generals Zog and Krizhan on either side. That clarified… not much. As far as Toma knew, being a jäger was about the only thing he had in common with Zbignev and Radovana. What the Generals could want with the three of them he couldn’t guess. Zog would have been in the center if it was war; Goomblast and Gargantua were mostly in charge of internal things, but Toma hadn’t heard anything that sounded like there would be promotions soon, except maybe for the wild jägers who’d be returned to their previous ranks. They hadn’t been supposed to do that until they’d adjusted to being with the army again, but that plan hadn’t been made with the knowledge that it would take as long for them to adjust as it was.

Also, Toma was pretty sure there was a betting pool somewhere concerning whether or not Radovana would try fighting the Generals if they tried to promote her any further, and if she’d amuse them enough to get out of the promotion if she did. Maybe he’d be able to answer that soon.

Still, since none of them had the _same_ rank promoting them together wouldn’t make sense, unless something unexpected, dangerous and bizarre had happened, and if _that_ was the case then General Zog would probably be in the center, and the Generals wouldn’t look so calm.

“Ve know dot zum ov de jägers dot returned iz havink problems,” Goomblast said. “Ve vant speceefiks.”

… _Oh_. Oh, well, that—

—had the Generals just included _Radovana_ in their list of sensitive jägers?

…Eh, she did mentor a lot. Toma could see it. The Generals were asking for assessments, not for them to go fix the problems. “Speeceefiks like, vot each ov dem iz doing?”

“Dot ken schtart,” General Gargantua said.

“Tahir vill not schtop lurking in corners,” Zbignev said, standing just an edge short of relaxed. “Und spends more time vith de vild vuns den vith his old friends.”

“Mircea, Marcu und Vilka iz alvays vit each other, onless Vilka haz a deeferent mission, und all ov dem iz learnink _healink_.” Radovana was a bit more casual than Zbignev, although not any more relaxed. “Und Dana iz tokking to herself und alvays fightink.”

General Goomblast raised an eyebrow.

“Iz veird for Dana,” Radovana said.

General Goomblast nodded.

“Eugen dun like loud tings now, dey make him jump,” Toma said. He _thought_ he managed to look relaxed, but it was hard with the topic. He left his hands by his sides instead of letting them creep toward a knife to play with. “Und Liviu iz alvays drinkink ven he should not be.”

“Aurel dun effen put hiz svord beck in its sheath ennymore. Alvays sharpening eet.”

“Dimo, Maxim und Oggie dun spend much time around enny jägers.”

“Hy tink dot iz Dimo und Maxim, Hy hear Oggie complaining about eet.”

“Dimo iz tryink to memorize Kestle Wulfenbach for all de escape routes. Tahir iz vith him, zumtimes.”

“Gina iz fallink asleep enny time she ken, und dun like lights or noises.”

“Emil haz not chenged, eksept dot he dun say _ennyting_ about ennyting vile he vos avay.”

“Nico does de same ting az Tahir vit de corners, eksept he iz alvays on de ceiling.”

Forty-one jägers, of the fifty-four originally sent out, none of which were acting like they had just twenty five years ago. The Generals looked grim. They did not look surprised.

“Und vot about others?” Krizhan asked. “Vilka vos not detached.”

Not that it had helped them any. Toma couldn’t think of any time he’d heard Vilka’s name in the last twenty years when they weren’t doing something dangerous. Whether that was just how Vilka acted or something new he was less sure of. And for the rest of the army….

“Vould be either a long leest, or a empty vun,” Zbignev said. “Almost efferyvun iz… wrong, now.”

Which was almost impressive, since _now_ had to be compared to the last eighteen years they’d spent without a Heterodyne. But true.

“Wrong how?” General Goomblast asked, like he already knew and only wanted confirmation.

“More fights. More ov dem iz angry,” Radovana said. Toma had seen those; fights that broke out not for fun, but from drinking and arguing and anger that had nowhere to go, and often ended with someone hurt, if there wasn’t a more reasonable jäger nearby that could end it first. Radovana was, from what Toma had seen, often the reasonable jäger nearby, which seemed to mean a determined effort on her part to beat her brothers back into being functional with a combination of fists and yelling. So far it hadn’t worked. “Not et each other, bot half ov dem tink so during de fight, ontil dey get into de next.”

“Lotz iz… not caring, ennymore.” Zbignev was frowning, staring intently at the wall between General Goomblast and General Krizhan. “Some tired, some chust dun care about ennyting bot de drinking und fightink und girls. Like dey dun remember dot next veek eksists.”

“Dere iz….” Toma shifted, back on his heels and then toes and then down. He _should_ say this, even if he didn’t want to know about it. “Dere iz some—not many—dot tink dot iz Dimo, Maxim und Ognian’s fault dot de Heterodyne iz… missink. Dot dey deedn’t do enough. Und dey should haff dere hats taken like Vole.”

All four Generals frowned. “Ve haff tokked to dem,” Krizhan said. “Und decided dot dey deed az moch az dey could haff.”

Toma was _not the one that said those things_ , but he still cringed a little. “Iz not me sayink eet.”

“Novun iz sayink it verra loudly,” Zbignev said. “Iz alvays someone heard dot someone heard dot someone said eet.”

“Iz _not me_ ,” Toma repeated. “Hy dun know who iz.”

“Find out,” General Gargantua said, and they all nodded. “Und ve vill tok to dem.”

Under other circumstances, Toma would probably have felt sorry for the jägers he was going to be tracking down. Under these, he did not.

“Keep vatchink de others. Ve will vant more reports on efferyvun,” General Goomblast said. “Und if sumtink looks verra bad, dun vait to tell os.”

…Er. That… probably wouldn’t make things worse….

Radovana didn’t say anything, but the way she snorted meant she didn’t really need to. Zbignev, when Toma glanced over, was still staring intently at a wall. This time it was a different wall.

“Do hyu not _vant_ to?” General Zog asked.

There were more warnings in the General’s voice than Toma thought he could count, but _not_ answering wasn’t any safer. Zbignev was still staring intently and silently at the wall, and Radovana was also keeping her mouth shut ( _now_ , of course) so apparently it would be Toma. He rocked back on his heels, caught himself, and straightened up. “…Efferyting is already verra bad. De entire army iz fallink apart, iz not much dot vatchink eet get vorse vill do if ve tell hyu or not.”

General Gargantua’s voice was only _slightly_ less dangerous when he turned to Radovana. She looked pleased anyway. “Sergeant Radovana?”

“ _Hy_ deedn't say eet,” Radovana said like it was some sort of victory.

No one commented on the logic behind that. Instead General Goomblast said. “Vatch ennyvay. Vot hyu tink vould help?”

That was another dangerous question, and Zbignev and Radovana still didn’t answer it. Zbignev was probably keeping his mouth shut just because he was smart, but Toma was beginning to wonder if he hadn’t somehow made Radovana mad recently, except she was usually much more obvious about it. Sneaky revenge wasn't really what she was known for. “…Hy dun tink vill get better ontil ve haff a Heterodyne beck.”

There was a very uncomfortable silence. Toma tried to think of an excuse to leave the room, but the Generals would probably know if he lied about having to go guard something.

“Dere iz not moch ve ken do for dot,” General Goomblast said after a minute. “Keep vatchink. Tell os if zumtink new heppens.”

“Yez sir,” Zbignev said. Toma and Radovana echoed him almost as quickly.

“Hyu ken go. Tell Andre to find de next tree.”

Rada stalked off as soon as they got out the door, and Andre disappeared in the opposite direction. Toma watched them go, decided neither direction would be safe for a while (being interrogated about what the Generals were up to wasn’t nearly as bad as being in Radovana’s way, but she would probably find someone else to punch pretty quickly if Toma waited), and turned to Zbignev. “Hy vunder how menny dey is esking.”

“Vos six yesterday,” Zbignev said.

Toma took a second to wonder how Zbignev knew, then decided he didn’t actually care. “Six today, hyu tink?”

“Mebbe more. Vos late yesterday.”

It was just after noon now, so the Generals might stop after talking to whoever the next three were. Or they could fit in another dozen. “Could esk Andre.”

“Mebbe.” Zbignev eyed the direction Andre had vanished in. “If he dun take too long to get beck.”

“Hyu tink ve should all know who ve iz vatchink?” It would make no sense for the Generals to not ask the others to keep watching too. He, Zbignev and Radovana couldn’t keep track of the whole army, especially when almost no one in it would admit to what they were watching for.

“Yah, bot hyu gets to tell Rada.”

…Toma was just getting himself into all sorts of trouble today. “Hy vill tell her ve is, bot Hy em not tellink her vot she is doink.” Zbignev snorted. “Hyu tok to Andre?”

“Yah, yah. Hy find hyu after Hy find him.”

Toma shook his head, and went to go find Radovana. It’d been a few days since he’d had a good fight, but he still hoped she found someone else to punch before he caught up with her.

~---~---~---~---~

It was never a good sign when the jäger generals came to Klaus’s office, and it was a particularly bad sign when he found all four standing casually outside the door. Gargantua was rarely on Castle Wulfenbach; Klaus didn’t have detailed enough information of the jägers’ movements now to know whether he’d been called back for whatever this visit was about, but even if he’d been aboard by coincidence and decided to come along it indicated something the generals took very seriously. They tended to get stubborn about such things, and that was never useful.

It would not help to acknowledge the trouble they were likely to cause too early, however, so Klaus greeted them politely and led them into the office. They kept up the same pretense, returning the greetings and following him in.

The only chair in the office that would have fit a general was Klaus’s, and it would only have fit Zog. He considered sitting, but that would have been too obvious; it was one thing to make his office unsuited to the generals, but obviously avoiding accommodating them when they came anyway would be too obvious. So he stood behind his desk while they lined up on the other side, and set the latest folder of notes pointedly on the desk. “Is there something I can help you with?”

Goomblast spoke, so they were still trying to be polite. “Ve hope so. De army iz… not copink vell, Klaus.”

“With the geisterdamen?” Klaus had expected that to be an easy assignment; time consuming, to scour the continent, but none of the reports had suggested that the jägers were having difficulty in the fighting.

“Vith de Heterodyne.”

—ah. Of course. Klaus was honestly a little disappointed with himself for not expecting that to be what they caused trouble about. “I am working on the problem as much as I can. It is more complicated than I anticipated.” If only he knew _what_ Lucrezia had done, he was sure he could remove her and restore her daughter, or at least remove her. But since the first experiment, all obvious signs of possession had vanished; whatever remained were undetectable without a pre-possession baseline to compare to.

“Ve know.” Goomblast wasn’t even trying to look like he trusted Klaus; instead he was frowning. Zog, Krizhan and Gargantua shared the expression. “Bot de jägerkin iz not meant to be vitout a Heterodyne, vich _hyu_ know. Ve iz especially not meant to be near a Heterodyne dot needs help, und not able to help, or to see dot she iz gettink help. De boyz iz not hendling eet vell.”

“I cannot release her while Lucrezia is still—”

“Ve is not esking dot,” Krizhan interrupted. Goomblast elbowed him, but he continued anyway. “She vos verra clear dot ve iz to keep her in ontil hyu let her go.” His voice was very controlled; too much for Klaus to hear what he was hiding, but it was almost certainly some sort of rebellion. It was _very_ good that he’d gotten the girl to give them those orders while she was still sometimes in control, but he’d still need to find some way to deflect them soon.

Goomblast continued. “Ve is esking… visits? Mebbe?” He shrugged, spread his hands over enough space for three men to stand in. “Hyu iz de vun dot knows vot iz safe. Bot ve need _sumting_ , or de jägers vill fall apart.”

“Visits would also be… dangerous, now. Lucrezia has learned to imitate her much better.” Damn her, for all of this. If Lucrezia hadn’t had a daughter there wouldn’t be any Heterodyne for the jägers to rebel for; if she hadn’t killed Bill and Barry, the jägers would have other Heterodynes to cling to and not be so protective of this one.

—hm. Actually, another Heterodyne _would_ be fairly easy to make. That circus woman’s body was still in Klaus’s lab, both perfectly healthy and completely brainless; he’d never gotten around to cleaning it out, but it would be useful for this. Gilgamesh… no, Gilgamesh would be far too sentimental about a child, and any other potential father couldn’t be trusted, any family would try to use the political influence of a Heterodyne connection. It would have to be a clone, then; more difficult, but certainly not unheard of.

“Hyu haff thot of sumting?” Goomblast asked. Something snuck past the control he had over his voice for the first time in the conversation; hope.

“…Perhaps. I will need to talk to her.” It would be very easy to claim a Heterodyne child had been the girl’s idea. The jägers wouldn’t doubt it; it was the sort of thing Bill would have done, if he realized he was dying. Give them someone else to attach to, continue the family so that Mechanicsburg at least stayed in one place and somewhat restrained.

It would complicate things, of course, should the girl’s mind be intact once Lucrezia was removed. If it ever happened. But there were psychological studies on false memories; with drugs and repetition, it should be easy to convince her she’d agreed to it, and if not, that Lucrezia had suggested it while successfully pretending to be the girl. (Not at all unlikely, in fact; Lucrezia had been successfully acting as the girl for a few months now, and would likely want a granddaughter to possess. Klaus would have to make sure the girl was kept safe, as well.) So long as the girl believed it was her idea, or believed it was Lucrezia’s and agreed to claim it was hers before she was released, it would work. Or he could simply claim that her mind _wasn’t_ quite intact and she’d forgotten about agreeing to it… there were any number of solutions.

Jägers did not, as a rule, sigh in relief, but Goomblast’s voice held a hint of it anyway. “Tenk hyu, Klaus.”

“You’re quite welcome.” It was, in fact, a neat solution; Klaus hadn’t expected the geisterdamen to distract the jägers indefinitely. He’d hoped that Lucrezia could be removed before the geisterdamen lost effectiveness, but especially in light of the chance that the girl might not be able to be saved, this was a much better solution. “Was there anything else?”

“Hy haff reports on de geistervimmen eef hyu vant to hear dem,” Zog said. “Bot nottink elze important.”

“Hm.” Klaus had two hours before he needed to meet with a messenger from Beetleburg about building additional student housing. He had been planning to go over his notes on Lucrezia again and check for anything he might have missed that would be useful, but that had proven to be a futile exercise every other time. He _could_ get started on plans for the Heterodyne child instead; if he could develop some sort of treatment to make it grow faster that would be advantageous. “Is there anything unusual in them? Anything the empire can offer to assist?”

“No. Dey iz still scattered und runnink, no real fightink et all.” Zog sounded irritated by the lack. A bit silly, as he wouldn’t be fighting them anyway; Gargantua was the only one likely to get a chance to fight if an enemy proved strong enough.

“Then I will read the reports later, and go speak to the Heterodyne now.”

Goomblast smiled, Gargantua grinned, and Zog and Krizhan looked satisfied. “Und ve vill let hyu,” Goomblast said.

“Goot day,” Krizhan added.

It took some shuffling for them all to turn around and leave, but they managed without bumping into each other. Klaus waited a few minutes, then left as well for one of his more private labs, that no one would enter. Few dared to sneak into his labs anyway and the students never _intentionally_ touched anything, but it would be best to be completely certain.


End file.
